Islamist Militants in Nigeria – “Why are international institutions and human rights organizations turning a blind eye to the systematic killing and displacement of Christians?” The Silent Jihadi Genocide Against Christians in Nigeria (The European Conservative)
Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia – “Two members of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for Life have come under fire for publicly urging support for assisted suicide as a tactic to prevent the legalization of voluntary euthanasia in Italy.” Pontifical Academy for Life Members’ Support for Assisted Suicide Draws Criticism (National Catholic Register)
Credited Religious Education – “Under the bill, kids across Montana are guaranteed one hour of ‘released time’ to attend catechetical instruction. The bill takes effect July 1.” Montana Guarantees Kids Access to Religious Instruction (First Things)
Christians in Iraq – “Iran’s pressure on Christian communities in Iraq is escalating, now threatening their very existence.” Iran’s Takeover of Iraq Threatens Mass Christian Exodus (Providence)
Abundant Life – “The Archdiocese of Philadelphia, under the leadership of Archbishop Nelson Perez, has embarked on a familiar journey, but with a unique twist.” Apprenticeship in the Christian Life (What We Need Now – Substack)
The Prior Worldview – “For the transfer of presidential power in January 2025 was not just an ordinary replacement of one administration with another, or one set of policy preferences with another. Instead, a worldview is being uprooted before our eyes, one that had seemed unshakably entrenched across mainstream society.” (The Clash with Civilizations (The New Criterion)
Opportunities for Unity – “From synodal clarity to liturgical peace-making, Pope Leo has several opportunities to promote stronger bonds within the Church.” 5 Ways Pope Leo XIV Might Promote Unity (National Catholic Register)
The Task of Ethics – “My thesis is that MacIntyre helps us to see that ethical reflection, properly conducted, leads to theological reflection, and so any ethical reflection that excludes any reference to divinity must fail at its task.” Alasdair MacIntyre’s Service to Theology (Church Life Journal)
Politics and Religion – “Christianity has been ‘political’ from day one, because Christianity is concerned with human salvation, and humanity just is political, which is to say it is always involved in making decisions and working things out together.” Christianity Is Political (Catholic Answers)
Supporting Local Economies – “One practical model for building a parallel economy is the 3/50 Project. Launched in 2009, the 3/50 Project encourages consumers to choose three local businesses they would miss if they were gone. The project encourages consumers to patronize those businesses every month by spending $50.” Building a Parallel Economy of Catholic-Owned Companies (Catholic Stand)
Another Industrial Revolution – “As the new pope told the College of Cardinals on May 10, 2025, he was inspired by his namesake’s teachings about economic justice during another time of radical technological change.” 19th-century Catholic teachings, 21st-century tech: How concerns about AI guided Pope Leo’s choice of name (The Conversation)
Embrace the Suck – “You don’t build strength by avoiding discomfort. You build it by seeking it.” This lesson I learned in the Marines will help you succeed at work (Fast Company)
(*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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@ Assisted Suicide & Euthanasia
Cdl Willem Eijk was a favored candidate for the papacy rather than the then virtually unknown Prevost. Prevost, selected as a compromise because of the split between conservatives and progressives that would only vote for a clearly left or right pontiff. Thus they chose a middle of the roader.
As it turned out Cdl Robert Prevost held to the same perspective of dual policy, promoting unity in faith and morals while promoting progressivism. Seems a contradiction to conservatives like myself, although for the modern illuminati it’s more of the Yin Yang concept of concrete realities that are wide open to accommodate vast numbers of exceptions. Prevost was always a dyed in the wool advocate for Amoris Laetitia.
And, yet, there’s the possibility that a “compromise” candidate is not really a “dyed in the wool” middle-of-the-roader.
If these are starkly Augustinian times (as in the sack of Rome in A.D. 410), then perhaps the key is that Pope Leo XIV is Augustinian, as with the clear-sighted saint from Africa. Maybe with such hopefully clarified vision—and keen olfactory endowments—he can again distinguish the “smell OF the sheep” from the (dung) smell FROM the sheep.
A make-a-mess misstep would be middling appointments to replace past disappointments.
The Prior Worldview – “For the transfer of presidential power in January 2025 was not just an ordinary replacement of one administration with another, or one set of policy preferences with another. Instead, a worldview is being uprooted before our eyes, one that had seemed unshakably entrenched across mainstream society.” (The Clash with Civilizations (The New Criterion). Highly recommended.
Who sees and writes more clearly than Heather McDonald about the ideological and political clash defining the day and age of our ‘civilization’. McDonald exposes and explains the left’s existential crisis. With DIE exposed as an emperor without clothes, its adherents cannot accept shame. Nor can they quite accept that one after another adherent is falling into the sinkhole they blame ‘the other’ for opening. Meritocracy opened the sinkhole and has claimed many brothers and bosses of bureaucracy. The right should prepare for the time when the real begins to replace the rhetoric of DIE adherents.
It may not be pretty. [Maybe someone can raise Francis from the grave to bring back the idea of a little dialogue!]
@ Opportunities for Unity
Among the five suggestions, the author includes improved curial appointments and greater balance for synodality. Two comments:
FIRST, in addition to replacing Fernandez at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith, this dicastery should be re-established as a Congregation committed to overall guardianship of the Deposit of Faith.
Not simply another dicastery among a pluralism of dicasteries and within a possibly rolling “process theology” of provisional consensus. Nor to be upstaged by the 15 Study Groups spirited away from the swamped Synod on Synodality, and previously scheduled to unveil in late June their marvelous discoveries about the resuscitated and so-called “hot button issues.”
SECOND, it is not enough to surely restore “balance” to synodality.
The old-hat James Martin should not be talking over, say, a participant from Courage International. The neologism synodality also must be reframed as not a “synod [of bishops].” Rather, as a distinct “ecclesial assembly” for, yes, greater harmony and discourse among ordained with the laity, but without confusion of ecclesial roles. An assembly clearly distinct from any “synod of bishops” within the “hierarchical communion” of the perennial Catholic Church (Lumen Gentium, Ch. 3, with the Explanatory Note). The flattening novelty smuggled in from der Synodal Weg needs to be removed from the universal Mystical Body of Christ.
” Montana Guarantees Kids Access to Religious Instruction (First Things)
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Good for Montana. I know Virginia has had Weekday Religious Education for almost 100 years. It’s usually in a trailer or bus just off the school property to comply with a court ruling. A Catholic friend in VA allowed her children to attend. Things have improved in the diocese since then, but honestly her children probably learned more at WRE than in their CCD.