Permanent Things – “True art is a hard sell in an era in which media is predominant.” Thomas Howard: Separating Art and Media (Acton Institute)
Sexual Morality – “It is hard to avoid viewing the Synod as a stalking horse for changing the Church’s moral theology when so many of the prelates that Francis has promoted to high office have said exactly that.” Wondering Out Loud While Maintaining Synodal Objectivity (National Catholic Register)
Struggling to Evangelize – “The president’s address comes nearly two weeks after papal nuncio Cardinal Christophe Pierre gave an interview in America Magazine in which he said the bishops need to change their pastoral approach to evangelization.” Broglio, Pierre spar on synodality in the US Church (The Pillar)
Administrative Removal – “The removal of Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from pastoral governance of the Diocese of Tyler, Texas, is an administrative rather than penal action, a canon law scholar told OSV News.” Analysis: Bishop Strickland’s removal is ‘administrative’—not a punishment (America Magazine)
Quitting the Pill – “In January 2023, an article by New York Post columnist Rikki Schlott surveyed a striking trend: a growing wave of young women opting out of hormonal birth control.” Feminists and Contraception (Human Life Review)
Ancient Lessons for Modern Ideologues – “St. Maximus the Confessor has much to offer the gender ideologue of today, in particular his understanding of the will being rooted in nature rather than in the person, or rather ‘psychological man.'” The Age of Confessors: Maximus the Confessor and the Problem of Gender Ideology (What We Need Now)
Not Hate Speech – “A Finnish parliamentarian and a Protestant church leader have been acquitted over charges of ‘hate speech’ and violating the nation’s statute against ‘War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity’ BREAKING: Paivi Rasanen Acquitted Over ‘Hate Speech’ for Sharing Bible Verse
JPII and Culture – “He actively participated in whatever culture he encountered. He understood the importance of culture to human life.” Toward Evangelization of Creators of the Christian Culture (Homiletic and Pastoral Review)
Criticizing the Theological Guild – “[W]e are justified in asking what this (Motu proprio) from the pope is really all about and what, specifically, it is criticizing, and what it is promoting. Three Theologians on the Pope’s ‘Paradigm’ Shift in Theology (The Catholic Thing)
Bans Prevent Abortions – “Even just one baby killed through abortion is a tragedy and a violation of basic human rights. But the stats show that abortion restrictions do reduce the killing of preborn babies . . . ” Study claiming uptick in abortions after Dobbs challenged by social scientist (Human Life Review)
The Church’s Alternative – “In his book All One in Christ, Edward Feser provides a succinct but comprehensive treatment of Critical Race Theory . . . ” Critical Race Theory for the Rest of Us (Public Discourse)
Messaging Confusion – “If you look at the successful leftist movements of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, one thing they had in common was the ability to stay on message.” Social Justice Runs Amok (Law & Liberty)
The DJ Priest – “They can think, ‘If it’s possible for a priest to be DJ, it’s possible for me to like music, and festivals, and be Christian.’” As a DJ, village priest in Portugal cues up faith and electronic dance music for global youth (Associated Press)
(*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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In the piece in America, Pierre suggests we perceive the incardination of Jesus in the sacrament as a walk just as Jesus walked with the disciples at Emmaus. He sees a successful Eucharistic revival as people experiencing “…the Lord walking with us together on the way,”
Do we perceive the Eucharist as a walk with God in the park? Would we consider up-ramping our recreational/sacramental skill through more daring deeds? How about mountain climbing, sky diving, or a trip to Mars? If nothing else, an increased heart rate will heighten perception of fear and/or exhilaration. Awareness of advancing age or body deconditioning because of couch-or-armchair decay is also likely. Thoughts of the ever-near approach of death should nudge other image lurking or buried in the peripheries of our soul.
Ramp it up! God is much more than a walk.
@Struggling to Evangelize
As one who served at least as a junior officer in the U.S. Navy, I vastly admire the role and character of Archbishop Broglio. The military guideline is “you can delegate authority, but you cannot delegate accountability.” Methinks this also applies especially and personally to each of the successors of the apostles relative to any consultative group, e.g., mongrelized synodality.
In response to an earlier interview by the papal nuncio whom I also respect, yours truly did send the following response to the nuncio email address:
Dear Archbishop Pierre,
As a reasonably well-informed layman, I have read your interview with Gerard O’Connell America magazine (“Cardinal Pierre on why the U.S. bishops are struggling to connect with Pope Francis,” Nov. 2, 2023) and respectfully submit a response to the key difficulties you address.
In short, all can agree that these times are “epochal.” But, I am also troubled that you still seem, at least, to be struggling over what this actually means in the Church and especially in the United States. Why do I say this. Six points in response:
FIRST, I fully agree that “we cannot say there are bishops who are on the left and ones that are on the right.” The political labels have never been fitting. No, instead we have those who are slandered as “backwardists” while there are others we might classify as “forwardists.” Arguably an ideology imported from the secular world and which now makes these times “epochal” even within the Church. The metaphor might be not that some what to set the clock back, but only want to set it right.
SECOND, you are “shocked” that many U.S. Catholic bishops did not know the origin of synodality. And, yet, you describe the Encuentro approach as a “kind of synodal process of the South American BISHOPS [your words]” while “synodality” today is now a new branding applied to a mixed-voting assembly of distinctly ordained bishops and other baptized lay people. The vapors of 1789 now imported into the Synod from the Synodal Way which you, yourself, have said on public television is a “non-synod!” One of several such transitions, and a “style” now poised to also redefine the universal Church? Eroding the accountability of the “hierarchical communion” as articulated by the Second Vatican Council (Lumen Gentium, Ch. 3, including the Explanatory Note)? The mixed-voting abuse of the Synodal Way now writ large?
Yours truly was a member of the Seattle Archdiocesan Pastoral Council (2001-2004) which in its final report included as one of its five major sections one entitled “Encuentro.” Not exactly new, after all, but a “consultative” council which at every meeting included the archbishop and his auxiliary bishop, but WITHOUT cross-dressing itself as a “synod.” We explicitly knew the difference between “the universal call to holiness” and pretending to resuscitate—by plebiscite vote!—the laid-to-rest “hot-button issues.”
THIRD, you observe that Evangelii Gaudium is rooted in Aparecida. Another observation I submit for possible “listening” is the exploitable ambiguity of the four “principles” superimposed within the document.
First, when is “realities are more important than ideas [concepts?]” at risk of NOMINALISM (LGBTQ exemptions from the moral absolutes of the universal natural law as affirmed in the Catechism and Veritatis Splendor)? Second, when is “time is greater than space” at risk of HISTORICISM (an amnesiac “paradigm shift”)? Third, when is “unity prevails over conflict” at risk of CLERICALISM (an “expert”-moderated synodal plebiscite)? Fourth, when is “the whole is greater than the part” at risk of GLOBALISM (e.g., the Fundamental Option, Proportionalism/Consequentialism)?
FOURTH, as for the “pastoral approach,” why is synodality embarrassed by the clarity of Veritatis Splendor on what this might actually mean, in terms of “concreteness” being used to upend (so to speak) moral theology?
“A separation, or even an opposition, is thus established in some cases between the teaching of the precept, which is valid and general, and the norm of the individual conscience, which would in fact make the final decision [no longer a ‘moral judgment’!] about what is good and what is evil. On this basis, an attempt is made to legitimize so-called ‘pastoral’ solutions contrary to the teaching of the Magisterium, and to justify a ‘creative’ hermeneutic according to which the moral conscience is in no way obliged, in every case, by a particular negative precept [thou shalt not!]” (Veritatis Splendor, n. 56).
FIFTH, yes, the difference between the Irish immigration (which included priests) and the crisis today where even Catholic Hispanics drift away from the Church within a generation or maybe two. So, yes, an “epochal” challenge in terms of evangelization across all of society. But, maybe it’s BECAUSE more of the bishops in the United State now clearly see this, that they and many, many others resent being patronized by synodal “listening” that is done with only one ear…
SIXTH, about your dismissive attitude toward the Latin Mass (I prefer the Novus Ordo), why are we reminded of how Pope Benedict concluded his “Principles of Catholic Theology” with the parable of Don Quixote: “The arrogant certainty with which Cervantes burned his bridges behind him and laughed at an earlier age has become a nostalgia for what was lost. This is not a return to the world of the romances of chivalry but a consciousness of what must not be lost and a realization of man’s peril, which increases whenever, in the burning of the past, he loses the totality of himself [or the perennial Catholic Church].”
The publication date is 1987, so it is gratuitous patronization for some to conclude that the Church in the United States is simply casting Pope Francis as some kind of “scapegoat,” or to humiliate “young priests today [who] dream about wearing a cassock.” Yes, while the Church is not to be only a “refuge,” why must it be outcast (as a new “periphery”!) within an “inverted pyramid” (c)hurch so forgetful of even the Second Vatican Council (the anchoring wording within Dei Verbum, and Lumen Gentium)? Why is even the papal nuncio unable to get past the flip-chart bullet points of a morphed “synod [of bishops],”? It’s almost Islamic: the House of the illuminati versus the “bigoted, fixistic, rigid, backwardist” House of the USCCB!
What if, instead, all do agree that these are “epochal” times? So, on points like the above, and this thing called “dialogue” and “listening”… maybe all of us should at least begin to walk the talk…
@ Struggling to Evangelize
Archbishop Broglio the Old Guard in defense of traditional honor and glory against the not so young Young Turks’ new epoch of change represented by the emperor’s American field marshall papal nuncio Pierre.
Some dare say the emperor has no clothes, though it’s shockingly evident he’s got power. Bishops, diocesan commanders, victims of sudden drumming out of the ranks relieved of command. Some might suppose this is all a last ditch effort to save a dying Church, once a great empire. Archbishop Broglio contends not so, the US Church is holding on. Americans, at least the remaining embattled faithful, holding on to ‘ancient’ now presumed lifeless dogma, old fashioned liturgy are a kind of thin red line holding out against radical change.
Whatever may be Vatican intent, that means the emperor, for good or not so good the dilemma is the effect on Church structure instituted by Christ, reduced to small round table discussions, and the indistinguishable new paradigm morality in context of Christ’s revelation. Does Jesus warrant correction? The emperor and his faithful believe so. American recalcitrants doggedly say no. We will never surrender!
I hope CWR can reproduce Larry Chapp’s piece from NCR of 10/10/23, “Sexual Morality.” In one piece, it’s an effective rebuttal of the most damaging aspects of this terrible pontificate.
The repercussions of lax moral attitudes raises concerns of admissability to the Eucharist, which Francis supporters typically respond saying, “to deny it is to be open to the charge of “rigidity” and a pharisaical blindness to the lived experience of “real people” who live in “complex circumstances.”
It is refreshing to read what ought to be obvious, the reality that sinners lie to themselves about their “experiences” addressed.