Cardinal Robert Sarah offers Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for his 50th anniversary of priesthood in 2019. / Credit: Evandro Inetti/CNA.
Washington, D.C. Newsroom, Dec 29, 2021 / 12:00 pm (CNA).
The past year had no shortage of news in the Catholic realm, both in the Vatican and beyond. Read on for a recap of some of the most important – and interesting – figures who made headlines this year.
President Joe Biden
On Jan. 20, 2021, President Joe Biden (D) was sworn in as the second Catholic president of the United States. Born in Scranton, PA and raised in Delaware, Biden attended Catholic grammar and high school before matriculating at the University of Delaware.
Since becoming president, Biden has faced criticism from both the left and the right over his various positions, as well as his continued reception of the Eucharist at Mass. As president, Biden eliminated many pro-life policies from the Trump era. He met with Pope Francis in late October, where the two purportedly discussed the Eucharist.
Cardinal Robert Sarah
Cardinal Robert Sarah, a native of Guinea, resigned as prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in February 2021. Sarah, who had reached the retirement age of 75 in June 2020, was the most senior African prelate at the Vatican. He had been appointed head of the liturgy department by Pope Francis in November 2014.
Sarah had previously served as the president of the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and as secretary of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples.
“Today, the Pope accepted the resignation of my office as Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship after my seventy-fifth birthday. I am in God’s hands. The only rock is Christ. We will meet again very soon in Rome and elsewhere,” said Sarah on Twitter following his resignation.
Jonathan Goodall and Fr. Michael Nazir-Ali
Each year, many people cross the proverbial Tiber and are received into the Catholic Church. This fall, however, the Tiber Swim Team landed two big-name recruits: two former Church of England bishops.
Jonathan Goodall, the former Anglican bishop of Ebbsfleet, announced on Sept. 3, the feast of St. Gregory the Great, that he was stepping down from his position and entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. The date was a nice touch, as St. Gregory the Great launched a mission to convert the then-pagan England to Christianity.
Goodall was formally received into the Church on Sept. 8. He said his decision came after “only after a long period of prayer, which has been among the most testing periods of my life.” He said he was “abidingly grateful to all who have so generously supported Sarah and me in these years, especially the laity and clergy of the See of Ebbsfleet — who have been the focus and joy of my ministry and devotion since becoming bishop in 2013,” and that it was “an immense privilege” to have been bishop.
Not to be outdone, a few weeks later the now-Fr. Michael Nazir-Ali announced that he, too, would be entering into full communion with the Catholic Church. Nazir-Ali, the former Anglican bishop of Rochester, entered into full communion with Rome within the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham on Sept. 29. He was ordained a deacon on Oct. 28, and then a priest on Oct. 30.
Unlike Goodall, who came from a more conservative Anglican background, Nazir-Ali described himself as being part of the “Evangelical” wing of Anglicanism. At one point, he was considered to be a possible future Archbishop of Canterbury, the spiritual leader of the world’s 85 million Anglicans.
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi
Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone of San Francisco is Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA)’s bishop. Cordileone and Pelosi are both Catholic. And that’s about where their similarities end.
Pelosi, a committed Democrat, lamented that the support of pro-life voters for former President Donald Trump was an issue that “gives me great grief as a Catholic.” Pelosi made the comment on a Jan. 18 podcast with former senator and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
“I think that Donald Trump is president because of the issue of a woman’s right to choose,” said Pelosi, implying that pro-life voters boosted Trump to victory in 2016. She added that these voters “were willing to sell the whole democracy down the river for that one issue.”
Cordileone rebuked Pelosi in a statement issued days later, saying, “No Catholic in good conscience can favor abortion” and that “Our land is soaked with the blood of the innocent, and it must stop,” he said.
The archbishop also promoted a “Rose and a Rosary for Nancy Pelosi” campaign, which saw more than 16,000 people commit to praying for Pelosi’s change of heart on life issues.
Archbishop Joseph Naumann
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City in Kansas wrapped up a three-year stint as the head of the USCCB’s pro-life committee in 2021. The outspoken defender of life unleashed on Biden in a Feb. 13 interview with Catholic World Report.
“The president should stop defining himself as a devout Catholic, and acknowledge that his view on abortion is contrary to Catholic moral teaching. It would be a more honest approach from him to say he disagreed with his Church on this important issue and that he was acting contrary to Church teaching,” said Naumann.
“When he says he is a devout Catholic, we bishops have the responsibility to correct him. Although people have given this president power and authority, he cannot define what it is to be a Catholic and what Catholic moral teaching is,” the archbishop added. He further called for the bishops to “correct” the president, “as the president is acting contrary to the Catholic faith.”
Sr. Lucile Andre Randon
The coronavirus pandemic continued throughout the world in 2021, killing hundreds of thousands of people. One person who beat it, however, was the world’s second-oldest person: a French nun named Sr. Lucile Andre Randon.
Right before Randon’s 117th birthday, coronavirus swept through the Sainte Catherine Labouré retirement home in Toulon, southern France. Eighty-one of the 88 residents of the facility tested positive in January of this year, and 10 died.
Fortunately, Randon did not display any symptoms of the disease and recovered in time to celebrate her birthday on Feb. 11.
Asked if she was scared of COVID, she told France’s BFM television, “No, I wasn’t scared because I wasn’t scared to die… I’m happy to be with you, but I would wish to be somewhere else – join my big brother and my grandfather and my grandmother.”
Hidilyn Diaz
The covid-postponed Tokyo 2020 Olympics finally were staged in the Summer of 2021, and Catholic athletes shined on the world stage.
On the third full day of the games, Hidilyn Diaz won the first gold medal for the Philippines, inspiring an entire nation with her faith, grit, and perseverance. Diaz’s triumph came in the women’s 55-kilogram weightlifting event, and she won gold with an Olympic record lift of a combined weight of 224 kilograms.
After completing her final lift in a very close competition, Diaz held her hands to her face, burst into tears and clutched at her Miraculous Medal of the Blessed Virgin Mary hanging from her neck. Later, on the podium at the medal ceremony, Diaz pointed skyward after singing the Philippine national anthem, then made the Sign of the Cross before stepping down and shouting “Mabuhay ang Pilipinas!” (“Long live the Philippines!”)
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Prayer and fasting. Always good. Thousands of roses? I am sure. It did make the florists very happy.
Archbishop Cordileone asks us to pray and fast. I ask him to actually DO something. He has indicated that he is still in dialog (I hate that word) with Speaker Pelosi. If he has been doing this for all the years he has been bishop of San Francisco, it apparently has not done much good. She just pushed through the House the most drastic abortion bill ever – 218 democrats for and 210 republicans against. To solve a problem you have to accurately identify it. Those voting numbers show where the problem is in eliminating abortion. I don’t recall seeing that addressed by the bishops.
Archbishop Cordileone *is* doing something. Instead of privately begging NP to change her support of abortion, in utter defiance of Church teaching, as his predecessors have done to no avail, he is putting this out in the public. He gives no doubt as to his defense of Catholic teaching and his desire to save her soul from hell, and for attempting to prevent her from leading others into scandal and mortal sin. I’m not sure what else he can possibly do to get through to NP. It is certainly an Act of Mercy for him to ask for prayers and fasting for her soul and for the end of all abortion in the USA. I admire him for his courage and especially for his service to the Church.
In the history of biblical interpretation, the Book of Revelation’s 666 and antichrist has been wrongly and notoriously read to mean one’s enemy or anybody one detests: the Pope, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Saddam, Obama, or Trump, etc. Similarly, Archbishop Cordileone here grotesquely implies by association that those who uphold abortion rights are Satanic.
Are you attempting to grotesquely imply that those who support infanticide are sanctified?
It certainly violates the 10 commandments, and the two commandments He gave us while here.
He is not “implying” it. He is openly suggesting it. And he is correct, Those who uphold infanticide are in the grip of Satan, whom they willingly serve.
I would also note that Satan has achieved the goal of convincing these poor dullards that he does not exist and thereby condones a belief that any action of hums that fulfills their desires is permissible.
Every now and then a statement such as yours causes me to bring up one of my favorite comebacks from about 50+ years ago in the Chicago Tribune by either Dear Abby or Ann Landers in response to an unusually moronic statement from one of her readers:
“You may have a point but if you keep your hat on maybe no one will notice.”
Pope Francis granted Nancy a private audience yesterday. That would be encouraging, if one actually believed that he confronted her about her support for abortion, which he recently termed as “murder.” It is more likely that he was “pastoral” rather than “political,” which would leave her with the impression that she is doing just fine. I think Jesus would have been “pastoral” and told her that she was endangering her eternal soul with her stance. That would be the most pastoral thing to do, as “pastoral” is not a synonym of “being nice.”
First, it is important that we are passionate to stop the murder of the innocent – especially defenseless children in the womb – is grounded in our love of God and His commandments (all of His commandments), including “Thou shalt not kill.” I fear too much of the time the passion of the Pro-Life movement is more about the movement, more about the cause, than the reason for the movement and cause – the eternal God and His commandments. We should be as passionate to change other evils in society as we are to change the evil practice of abortion (murder of innocent children in the womb). I know this will ruffle feathers of some, but it is intended to cause reflection on the real motivation behind the passion, and to ask for that same passion in defending the laws of God in every area of life and society.
Second, Moloch (also known as Molech, Milcom, Milkim, Malcham, Malik) was the name of the national god of the Ammonites, to whom children were sacrificed by fire. While those who support and/or practice the evil of abortion, which is nothing less than child sacrifice, may not believe they are worshiping Moloch (in effect worshiping demonic forces and even Satan), their beliefs in and practice of abortion is evidence they are submitting to the rule of Satan and demonic forces, in effect worshiping Moloch.
I would like to make some follow-up comments addressing Susan K.’s statement that Archbishop Cordileone is doing something. We have different concepts of what “doing” something is. He has been Pelosi’s bishop for nine years. I by no means think that Archbishop Cordileone is stupid. But there is an old saying that the definition of stupidity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Obviously what he has been doing for nine years has not worked. Pelosi is more pro-abortion now than she was nine years ago.
Doing something would be enforcing Canon 915 of Canon Law – that she cold not receive the Eucharist. Doing something would be saying that being pro-abortion is a disqualifying issue for being elected to any office. These types of actions may have some positive effect on her. Even if not, it may have some effect on the 50% of Catholics who vote for pro-abortion politicians. As it stands, there seem to be many Catholics who believe that since nothing happens to the pro abortionists, then it must be OK to vote for them.
I would also like to see a little outrage in the bishops’ statements regarding the murder of millions of unborn babies. A little “Woe to you pharisees (pro-abortionists) might go a long way.
This doesn’t have to do with Archbishop Cordileone, but I just saw today that Pelosi had a meeting with the pope over the weekend. Several smiling pictures of the two together. But there was also a news item that she attended mass in Rome on Sunday, and the heckling made her leave church. There is a video of the priest saying that he was sorry she had to leave, as she was going to do the second reading. Good Grief!
To be fair, let’s keep in mind that the president and Speaker of the House both claim that they are opposed to abortion, but they do not think that it is helpful to use government power to stop it.
good