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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Spreading the Good News is an effective way to combat corruption.
Indeed! God bless you.
All good points from the Holy Father. And, here’s another “clever” Gospel thought about corruption, as a cross-cultural phenomenon….if the German “synodal path” is still “Catholic,” then Islam is still “a religion of peace.”
But, the fly in the ointment, however, is the “wrong turn” taken by Muhammad himself after he had lost the clan protection against the culture of tribal blood-feud vengeance—that is, after the natural deaths of both his protective uncle and his wife who was fairly well-positioned in Meccan high society. His flight to Medina (the Hejira, 622 A.D.) marks a paradigm shift (!) within/from original Islam. It replaced the peaceful period of Islam with the later defensive/expansive and jihadist period, beginning in the last ten years of Muhammad’s life (d. 632 A.D.).
Within Islam and the Qur’an, the unresolved retention of this contradiction is defended as “abrogation.”
Today, in Germania, has a parallel “wrong turn” and recent paradigm shift (!) come when the Council and then the Church’s restorative leadership under Pope St. John Paul II and Benedict were replaced by the feuding Germanic tribe of Kasper/Marx/Batzing (and Hollerich)? And, by their synodal dismantling of the “real” Second Vatican Council (of the Documents) with the virtual “spirit of the council” and worse?
Within the Church, now, Cardinal Roche even brands the Novus Ordo (and the entire Tradition associated with it?) as not only an imperfect but still a grounded “development” but, in his words, as an “abrogation” (!). More unifying (and less Islamic) parsing of events seems not too much to ask within the perennial and Eucharistic Church.
During his tenure, Papa has generated a good deal of controversy on a wide range of topics. To his credit, he has said it is acceptable to criticize the pope. Ye t some comments are over the top, for example the following:
“A submission from Maryland, U.S. says the name Bergoglio means “Antichrist”.”
This however, is quite uncalled for!
Instead, let us pray for Papa!
“Pope Francis said Sunday that Christians should not become discouraged or remain indifferent to stories of corruption, but instead “be creative in doing good with prudence.”
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1556
My daughter, tell souls that I am giving them My mercy as a defense. I Myself am fighting for them and am bearing the just anger of My Father.
Luke 16:1 The Parable of the Dishonest Steward.
I have seen these “Dishonest Stewards”! I have actually even done business with them. They are our precious Catholic Priests.
If you have a debt to God, in which you could never in a septillion lifetimes repay, go visit your local Catholic Priest, he will work something out for you.
“And the master commended that dishonest steward for acting prudently”
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 1448
Tell souls where they are to look for solace; that is, in the Tribunal of Mercy (the Sacrament of Reconciliation). There the greatest miracles take place (and) incessantly repeated. To avail oneself of this miracle, it is not necessary to go on a great pilgrimage or to carry out some external ceremony; it suffices to come with faith to the feet of My representative and to reveal to him one’s misery, and the miracle of Divine Mercy will be fully demonstrated. Were a soul like a decaying corpse so that from a human standpoint, there would be no (hope of) restoration and everything would already be lost, it is not so with God. The miracle of Divine Mercy restores that soul in full. Oh, how miserable are those who do not take advantage of the miracle of God’s mercy! You will call out in vain, but it will be too late.
Divine Mercy in My Soul, 699
I desire that the Feast of Mercy be a refuge and shelter for all souls, and especially for poor sinners. On that day the very depths of My tender mercy are open. I pour out a whole ocean of graces upon those souls who approach the fount of My mercy. The soul that will go to Confession and receive Holy Communion shall obtain complete forgiveness of sins and punishment. On that day all the divine floodgates through which grace flow are opened. Let no soul fear to draw near to Me, even though its sins be as scarlet.
Divine Mercy in my Soul, 635, The Blessed Virgin Mary :
you have to speak to the world about His great mercy and prepare the world for the Second Coming of Him who will come, not as a merciful Savior, but as a just Judge. Oh, how terrible is that day! Determined is the day of justice, the day of divine wrath. The angels tremble before it. Speak to souls about this great mercy while it is still the time for [granting] mercy. If you keep silent now, you will be answering for a great number of souls on that terrible day
http://www.apocalypseangel.com/married.html