The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, October 18, 2023

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

Part of Michelangelo's fresco of the Last Judgment in the Sistine Chapel. (Image: Wikipedia)

Anthropological Insanity – “The Catholic Church has the longest and richest cultural tradition in the world. Which must make the angels weep to see the threadbare, self-important, pseudo-sociological, pseudo-psychological, mind-numbing ecclesial language in which the current synod is being conducted.” Homophobia and Homo Sapiens (The Catholic Thing)

Dubia Response – ” Any form of magisterial positivism is also contrary to the Catholic Faith, since the Magisterium cannot teach what has nothing to do with Revelation, nor what is explicitly contrary to Sacred Scripture … ” Your Eminence, dear brother Dominik Cardinal Duka… (L’Espresso)

Saving Western Civilization – “A cloud is overshadowing the West — the cloud of despair. Try as we might to cast this cloud away with ambitions of future states of perfection, the desire for ultimate meaning remains unfulfilled.” The Spe Salvi Institute Manifesto (Spe Salvi Institute)

The Gardens of God – “The greatest value of ‘The Gardens of God’ is as an occasion for building communion in the Church.” Cardinal Roche’s Welcome Tonic Against the Toxins of Catholic Polarization (National Catholic Register)

Man and Woman – “It is said that every era inevitably finds itself face to face with a particular question, a burning issue that belongs to it—and to it alone.” The Genius of Woman (What We Need Now – Substack)

Hamas Terrorists – “Events in the Middle East have revealed, more starkly than ever before, the moral squalor of the identity left—and thus opened space for a reformist new center in US politics.” Woke Is Dying—Long Live the New Center (Compact)

Religio-Ethnic Struggle – “The vanishing ethnic enclave dated back to 1,722 years ago when Armenia became the first state to collectively adopt the Christian religion. As geography evolved, the Nagorno Armenians found themselves caught in a sector within Azerbaijan.”‘ Ethnic cleansing’ of Armenian Christians: Time for the press to rethink persecution? (Get Religion)

A Eucharistic Procession – To characterize this procession as an activity populated by “aging white guys” is just stupid. I mean, look at the pictures, dude. Eyes to see, ears to hear (Charlotte Was Both)

Modifying Christian Doctrine – “And when, more than a half-century ago, college boys and girls started going to bed with one another, many Americans, especially younger ones, said, ‘So what?  It’s only a minor sin.'” Of Trojan Horses and Sexual Compassion (The Catholic Thing)

The Fernández Era  – “In the Oct. 10 conversation with the Spanish website Religión Digital, the new prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) spoke about his department’s responsibility for clerical abuse cases.” Cardinal Tucho’s transparency test (Pillar Catholic)

Left-Wing Ethnopolitics – “One needs only to browse the current Harvard course catalog to see how deeply the rhetoric of ‘decolonization’ has been embedded.” Civilizational Suicide (City Journal)

Restrictions on Religion – “‘Cultivate and Practice the Core Socialist Values, Ushering in the Sinification of Christianity’ — the Chinese Communist Party’s five-year plan on co-opting religion is moving into a new phase.” China further reduces freedom of religion (Mercator)

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


If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.


4 Comments

  1. The essay in the National Catholic Register by Fr. Raymond de Souza on “The Gardens of God” by Cardinal Roche is an offering of ridiculous fiction by Fr. De Souza.

    For Catholic men and women who read a little deeper and wider than the “narratives” confected by self-congratulatory “moderates,” Fr. de Souza’s essay is “Exhibit A” in the case study that can be entitled: “Church Unity Depends On Convincing The Faithful To Pretend That Reality Isn’t Happening.”

    The most preposterous “suggestion” in the essay by Fr. de Souza is that Cardinal Roche was, under Benedict XVI, an “enthusiastic supporter” of B16’s Summorum Pontificum. Those Catholics aware of how Roche acted in his diocese in England to subvert B16’s SP contradict Fr. de Souza’s “narrative” by instead referring to what Roche actually did.

    Fr. de Souza then pivots from his fiction by admitting in his essay that (somehow) Cardinal Roche (turning on a dime), immediately became an enthusiastic supporter of Pontiff Francis’ attack against the Catholic people who revere the EF or TLM, and Fr. de Souza then dutifully commends Cardinal Roche for his “docility” to the both of Holy Fathers (despite their contradicting one another).

    If Fr. de Souza keeps confecting fiction like this, he may increase his chances for a bishop’s miter, and no longer be relegated to merely writing fiction for the faithful, but also be “empowered” to solicit other fiction from future “docile” clerics, who themselves might write their way to a miter.

    For some reason, the “homily” from Bishop Barron about “eloquent ambiguity” comes to mind.

  2. Sexual sin only a “minor thing”. And since inconvenient babies result from minor concerns, getting rid of them comes to be thought of as a “minor thing.” And when this goes on for a long time, even desensitized prelates allow themselves to become too dumb to make the connection.

1 Trackback / Pingback

  1. Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, October 18, 2023 – Via Nova

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*