The Dispatch: More from CWR...

Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, January 15, 2025

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

(Image: TayebMEZAHDIA / Pixabay)

Where Is That Damning Dossier? – “This week, with the publication of his new book, Pope Francis has added one important link to the chain of evidence regarding the fight against Vatican corruption.” Confirmed: the corruption Pope Francis chose not to expose (Catholic Culture)

No Liturgical Unity – “In truth, the pope’s directive has initiated a cultural change, which would seem to aim at effectively grinding to a halt a broader Benedict XVI-era initiative — the so-called ‘reform of the reform’” After ‘Traditionis,’ is reforming the reform still ok? (The Pillar)

A Supernatural Minority – The Church “is a minority called to become salvation and blessing for all humanity and for the whole cosmos. Its liturgy is cosmic and universal. It is based on creation, on the truth written on the human heart.” Creative Minorities (What We Need Now)

Franciscan, Boethian, then Dominican – “Jason M. Baxter, author of A Beginner’s Guide to Dante’s Divine ComedyIntroduction to Christian Mysticism, and The Medieval Mind of C. S. Lewis, has undertaken his most daunting task yet: translating Dante’s Divine Comedy.” An Iconoclastic Inferno (First Things)

Offer Up Everything – “Church history attests to the ecclesial reform that has come through the very holiest. But as basic as this goal is, I have no idea how to become a saint.” Don’t Waste Anything (What We Need Now – Substack)

The McElroy Appointment – “McElroy may make progressives, Catholic and not, feel some degree of self-satisfaction in the ‘resistance.’ In practical terms, it will amount to nothing.” Cardinal McElroy and the God of Surprises (The Catholic Thing)

The Fire Was Coming – “For years, we have sounded the alarm to anyone who would listen. San Francisco and Los Angeles ignored us.” Why Los Angeles Is Burning (Unwon)

The Donald Game – “President-elect Donald Trump and Pope Francis are leaders with such vastly different agendas and perspectives that it’s tempting to imagine the two men right now being involved in a high-stakes game of chess … ” The next moves in chess game between Trump and Pope Francis (Catholic Herald)

Canada’s Quasi-Obama – “Going into his first general election in 2015, Trudeau had clear advantages. With his last name, he was the closest thing Canada has to domestic royalty.”  The End of Trudeau’s Pseudo-Caesarism (First Things)

Reclaiming Our Humanity – “In The Extinction of Experience, academic Christine Rosen makes a fresh attack on the algorithms that have left us coddled and uncreative.” Why life without a smartphone is better (The Telegraph)

Facebook Censorship – “Facebook used ‘fact-checks’ to inflict reputational and financial harm on outlets like The Federalist for our counter-narrative reporting.” We’re Still Waiting For Facebook To Atone For The 11 Times (We Know Of) It Censored The Federalist (The Federalist)

(*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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5 Comments

  1. @ Offer up Everything
    On how to become a saint, also this–surely elimination of sinful contradictions, but then more, simply stepping back quietly from even necessary distractions:

    “One must conclude that the normal human condition–it ‘is’ normal [!] to be close to God–is to experience an abiding joy [….] This habitual harmony is not emotionally felt (although the feelings may or may not accompany it). It is delicate, quiet, spiritual. It is not produced by human effort [!] but is given by the Holy Spirit himself” (Thomas Dubay, “Authenticity,” 1977/Ignatius 1997, pp. 216, 219).

  2. Besides Robert Royal’s article on McElroy at The Catholic Thing, we can also read Prof. Grondelski and Leah Lawler on same. All posit McElroy’s post as much ado about nothing inasmuch as Christ and His own are able to transcend and conquer the wiles and wills of unChristian progress which amount to nothing in the long run.

    Phil Lawler’s article at Catholic Culture on Vatican corruption also sounds a similar theme. From nothing will come nothing [unless God is the engine in the car the pope believes he chauffeurs; the pope has nothing to say or do to make the car go where the pope alone hopes to go. God alone is the cause and reason of our hope, and He will ensure we safely get there no matter what turns, twists, or speeds the chauffeur may take.]

    Finally, the What We Need Now Substack “Don’t Waste Anything” essay is an optimistic offering, despite its effort to find the golden mean.

  3. Re: Where Is That Damning Dossier?
    Given his own theological corruption, his blind faith in the tides of history, and his fundamental hatred for the very notion of received immutable truth, there is no reason to believe Francis would seek to remove rather than cynically manipulate the many corruptions revealed to him by his predecessor.

  4. “The Indians gave us the natural forest. Much of it was patchy, and the trees grew to differing heights,” Wilson told him. “This combination of open ground and uneven canopy kept the fires from raging. Now the fires are raging. They’re racing from forest to suburbia, and we’re scratching our heads trying to figure out why.”
    **************
    A family member lives part-time in So. CA for work & their residence is within a fire evacuation warning zone. They told me that 3/4’s of their clients’ homes are burned so they won’t be having any work in the near future.
    I read that some neighborhoods in the wildfire zone hadn’t had any brush clearance in 50 years. Environmentalists resist that.
    Everything in So CA is set up by nature for cyclical wildfires. The Santa Ana winds from the desert compress & heat up coming down the mt. slopes.
    Highly flammable vegetation, & periodic drouths create a perfect tinderbox.
    The canyons & mountain foothills are lovely but I’m pretty sure the Indians had more sense than to build densely populated communities up in them surrounded by flammable vegetation. There’s at least one So CA canyon with only a single road going in & out for evacuation.

  5. @ The Donald Game
    Trump, more than any other argument posed, sent Burch to the Vatican as US ambassador to keep the Catholic vote he finally won for the Republican Party. Mary Eberstadt over at First Things argues Catholics voted for Trump because they finally realized their disrepute [deplorables and so on] by Democrats. That’s a welcome opinion although it appears wrong.
    Catholics in the main are not anywhere near Burch’s hardline Catholicity. They still overwhelmingly support abortion and gay rights. Then what is the chess move Crux’s John Allen is talking about? Allen doesn’t come up with a rationale for Trump sending the volatile Cdl Viganò defender, conspiracy theorist [the corona virus scare a globalist control weapon] a supporter of mass deportation, these and more absolutely contrary to Pope Francis policy.
    Allen quotes Clausewitz’ war as political policy observation as pertinent. Although the reasons for this ‘act of aggression’ toward the Vatican is not likely a defense of American Catholic conservatism, which is a meager minority. Rather it’s to insure US Catholic support for political policy reasons such as immigration and the wall, anti green environmentalism in favor of fossil fuel exploitation. Then who knows that a successful confrontational Trump Pope Francis policy may incite a wake up call, a second look by US Catholics at the conservative values they’ve largely abandoned.

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