The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Extra, extra! News and views for November 23, 2022

Here are some articles, essays, and editorials that caught our attention this past week or so.*

(Image: Chris Henry/Unsplash.com)

Record Turkey Prices – “Thanksgiving dinner will cost 20% more this year compared to last year.” Thanksgiving Necessary for National Renewal (The Association of Mature American Citizens)

Latin Mass Revival – An ancient form of Catholic worship is drawing in young traditionalists and conservatives. But it signals a divide with the church. Old Latin Mass Finds New American Audience, Despite Pope’s Disapproval (New York Times)

The Need for Music – “The pre-Vatican II Catholic understanding of music, the Mass and the congregation meant that once the Conciliar reforms hit, there was a gaping hole under the category ‘music.'” Gonna Sing (Charlotte Was Both)

Political Scrutiny – “Immediately after (Archbishop Timothy Broglio’s) election, the archbishop faced questions about his time working in Rome as priest secretary to former Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Angelo Sodano. Broglio and the politics of affiliation (Pillar Catholic)

Same-Sex Weddings – “The religious liberty ‘protections’ in this dangerous Senate bill are hollow and won’t protect Americans from the bill’s harms” No respect for religious freedom in the “Respect for Marriage Act” (World)

Our Dear Friend – “We have much to be grateful for in Dr. Schindler’s 30-year commitment to our institution: his prodigious and profound scholarly work, his teaching and mentorship of hundreds of students, his collegial friendship, and his visionary leadership.” David L. Schindler (1943-2022)

Abandoning Religious Vows – The Voice winner Suor Cristina now goes by Cristina Scuccia. Italy’s singing nun Suor Cristina casts off her veil (Wanted in Rome)

Anti-Child Practices – “We send apparently conflicting signals about the meaning and dignity of the child in our culture.” We Are Not Our Own: Childhood in a Technological Age (The Imaginative Conservative)

The Synodal Process – “Austen Ivereigh and the other ‘experts’ at the recent synodal summit in Frascati act as if John Paul II’s papacy added nothing constructive on the lay faithful, families, clergy and other topics related to Vatican II.” Peeking Inside the Synod on Synodality’s Boardroom (National Catholic Register)

The Bird Site – “If you’re a certain type of person, it might feel like Twitter is where everything’s happening on the internet. That is very much not the case.” Nobody Cares About Twitter (How to Geek)

Defying the Vatican – “German synod has called for changes in doctrine on homosexuality and women’s ordination” German Catholic Bishops Face Vatican Critics, Refuse to Stop Questioning Church Teachings (The Wall Street Journal)

Dion DiMucci – A 1950s heartthrob survived his own blues, and is still singing them. Dion: The Wanderer Has Never Left the Building (The Village Voice)

Stanford Expansion – Stanford University is working on plans to expand its physical presence in the Bay Area by acquiring the campus of the Notre Dame de Namur University in Belmont.  Stanford looks to expand onto campus of nearby Catholic university (Los Angeles Times)

Blessing of Rings – “Looking back on her past two years at The Catholic High School of Baltimore, Yury Guardado Iglesias says the fact that she and her family are Pentecostal was never considered a problem.” Academically gifted Pentecostal student protests her expulsion from Catholic school (Baltimore Brew)

Hushed Reverence – “These converts have been drawn to Rome from mainline Protestantism, from Hinduism, from Judaism and agnosticism and full-bodied atheism. But why?” 5 Conversion Stories of People Who Became Catholic (National Catholic Register)

Youthful Protegees – “Jim May might not fit most people’s image of a man known for inspiring young people to embrace a Catholic religious vocation. . . . Yet through his Catholic faith and his ability to extend Christian friendship . . . he has opened the door to religious life to an impressive number of St. Olaf students.” Riding the ‘May Train’ from St. Olaf College to Catholic religious life (The Catholic Spirit)

Parental School Choice – “Time for lawmakers to give parents, students school choice so they get equality of opportunity.” Why Catholic school students outperformed government school students during lockdowns (Fox News)

Mission as Educators – “Pope Francis reminds Catholic educators that Christian education must be both “fully human and fully Christian” while warning against ideological colonization.” Pope warns Catholic educators against ideological colonization (Vatican News)

The Political Divide – “How we organize ourselves socially and politically is not a spiritual irrelevance for the Christian and the Gospel does indeed have deep political implications.” Catholics’ Primary Politics (National Catholic Register)

(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)


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6 Comments

  1. Regarding the “Synodal Process” (middle of the lineup), Fr. Raymond J. de Souza tells it like it is. Such a travesty…

    And we thought the clown Masses of the 1970s were an abuse; now we have an entire circus-tent process of kumbaya sin-nod-ism! And even including “empty chairs” for the 99% who did not join the chorus, to better enable additive spin-editing by empaneled experts. In all, the Three (synodal) Stooges of “combination, aggregation and synthesis”!

    While in another posting, “Mission as Educators” (second from bottom), Pope Francis correctly warns teachers against “ideological colonization.” But then, also clarifying (?) that “rigidity destroys education.” Yes and no.

    Finely-spun Cotton Candy, anyone! (The synthesized flavor includes an ethyl maltol additive!)

  2. Justice at stake. JD Flynn attentive to justice cites Broglio’s decade of service in the office of then Secy of State Card Sodano accused of notorious coverups regarding Marcial Maciel, McCarrick. Although Flynn questions the appearance of selective scrutiny of Archbishop Broglio, in comparison to Card Farrell’s years of Washington apartment sharing with McCarrick Farrell, and similarly the high profile child protection appointment of Bishop Barry Knestout former secretary to McCarrick.
    Flynn clarifies the anomaly, “editorials and news reports covering Broglio’s work in Sodano’s office have also lamented that the archbishop is anti-Francis, a culture warrior, and a mistake, and criticized the archbishop’s views on homosexuality and abuse” (Flynn). In doing so he touches by inference, perhaps unwittingly, a scenario that exists in the media as well as in the Church. A ghost church that exists alongside the actual Church instituted by Christ, which is in continuity with Apostolic tradition.
    If this comprises a schism, as occasionally alleged by Pope Francis [indicated in His Holiness’ criticism of Archbishop Cordileone, who justifiably followed canon 915 regarding Nancy Pelosi, for lack of pastoral awareness] – the question may be posed, what is the schism? If it’s those who refrain from following papal teaching that are schismatic, what exactly is the doctrine Cordileone [and by inference Broglio] et al are repudiating? If it’s the implementation of canon 915, and the condemnation of same sex relations, the sanctity of sacramental marriage v cohabitation, condemnation of adultery these alleged ‘schismatics’ are in agreement with long standing papal endorsed doctrine.
    In context of sound, perennial doctrine it would be just to hold that the schismatics are those who repudiate the long held, formally pronounced doctrines of the Church.

  3. I’ll second Mr. Beaulieu above – #9 – The Synodal Process – Peeking Inside the Synod on Synodality Boardroom (National Catholic Register) – not-to-be-missed entry from Fr. Raymond de Souza.

  4. @Anti-Child Practices.
    “Jesus makes becoming like children a condition for entrance into heaven and hence for the everlasting participation in divine life to which we are all invited. The human being is not only to begin as a child, as it were, but also to end as one” (David L Schindler in The Imaginative conservative).
    Rarely have I read anything so profoundly true and so beautifully expressed. Yes. We belong to God. A child’s innocence in accepting reality is dismissed by the learned, the genius Descartes critical of the acceptance of “the truth of things simply as given”. What the intellectually sophisticated miss is the wisdom of the innocent.
    Perhaps the greatest mind of all, Saint Thomas Aquinas agrees with Schindler. And with God. A certain innocence of heart, a spiritual quality has the humility to accept the given in God’s creation. That is why Aquinas designates sensible perception the First Principle of all knowledge. Reason and faith remain grounded in reality. An essential for moral coherence because the first principle of morality is what is sensibly perceived [an apprehensive operation of the intellect] the act to be done.
    Holiness, coming close to God requires we attain that childlike innocence. Humility is the realization and willing acceptance that our intellect is limited, that sanctity is the disposition to receive. What Schindler says is an uncritical [humble] integration in the form and spirit of philosophy, contemplativeness, and liturgy. That would be found in the perfection of the monastic life. And for the rest of us in our similar childlike innocent awareness of the beauty of the most sublime truth, God who is love itself.

  5. Suor Cristina, the Italian singing nun who recently cast off her veil, reminds me of the Belgian singing nun Soeur Sourire who cam to world fame in 1963 with her song Dominique. Sister Sourire committed suicide with her lesbian lover twenty years after
    casting off her veil. May Sister Cristina avoid the same fate. But the ring in her nose is not a hopeful sign.

2 Trackbacks / Pingbacks

  1. Extra, extra! News and views for November 23, 2022 | Passionists Missionaries Kenya, Vice Province of St. Charles Lwanga, Fathers & Brothers
  2. Extra, extra! News and views for November 23, 2022 | Franciscan Sisters of St Joseph (FSJ) , Asumbi Sisters Kenya

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