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The Softest Hot Cross Buns You’ll Ever Make…
This issue of the newsletter is sponsored by Wilfa How do you feel about calendar based foods, recipes that are made just for special occasions, traditional foods you can look forward to on their annual arrival? I am, of course, talking about hot cross buns, ‘tis the season after all. Supermarkets love to stretch the traditional period these glorious buns are available, but when you go to bakeries and to home kitchens, they are still only made in a relatively short window. Personally I tend to make them once or twice during this short window. I think this scarcity makes the hot cross buns more exciting, more special, more valued. I know that probably makes me sound like a cranky old person, moaning about the availability of creme eggs in January, but so be it. I think it’s nice to have thi...
The Story of the Chinese Farmer…
Long ago, there was a widowed Chinese farmer. The farmer and his only son labored through the cold winds of winter and scorching rays of summer with their last remaining horse. One day, the son didn’t lock the gate of the stable properly, and the horse bolted away. When neighbors learned what happened, they came to the farmer and said, “What a sadness this is! Without your horse, you’ll be unable to maintain the farm. What a failure that your son did not lock the gate properly! This is a great tragedy!” The farmer replied, “Maybe yes, maybe no.” The next day, the missing horse returned to the farmer’s stable, bringing along with it six wild horses. The farmer’s son locked the gate of the stable firmly behind all seven horses. When neighbors learned what happened, they came to th...
The Fathers of the Desert went out in the desert to “escape the pop songs.” We too must learn to guard our hearts…..
The hardest part of Lent is the consistency. It takes what the Desert Fathers, those famous old monks of the Egyptian desert starting around the third century, liked to call “discernment” or “discretion.” In a modern Catholic context, “discernment” often means determining whether God wants you to be a priest, a deacon, or a religious. Discretion means for us not spilling the beans: “Sure, you can tell John about your situation—he’s very discreet.” But for the monks, this word meant something more. They used the Greek word “diakresis,” which has the same root word as “crisis,” meaning a moment of decision. Discernment was that ability to understand what God’s will was in any situation, above all to judge one’s interior motives for any action. If truly Christian behavior is not just doing th...
‘The Neighbors Hate the Church’: Sacred Heart Church in Bordeaux, France, Vandalized With Satanic and Anarchist Graffiti…
By Diego Lopez Marina ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 18, 2023 / 08:00 am The walls of Sacred Heart Church, located in downtown Bordeaux, France, were vandalized with satanic graffiti and communist and anarchist symbols the night of March 12-13. In addition, the vandals burned trash on the church’s esplanade. The news was confirmed on March 13 by Constance Pluviaud, head of communications for the Archdiocese of Bordeaux. “On the night of March 12-13, the door and some of the walls of the façade of the Church of the Sacred Heart were defaced with graffiti. A trash fire in front of the church was extinguished by firefighters called to the scene. This fire did not damage the church,” the archdiocese reported in a statement. Services Marketplace – Listings, Bookings & Reviews Entertainment blo...
Endless filth needs transparency, truth, tiers and tears…
(OSV News) It was terrible to learn that Jean Vanier — whom so many Catholics had looked up to as the saintly, heroic founder of L’Arche — had been manipulating and abusing women who came to him seeking spiritual direction. We needed to learn about it, though, and that we have is due to the admirably full-on, deep investigation that L’Arche undertook when informed of the abuse, and its transparent release of findings. It had to be immensely painful and difficult for the community, but they did not shirk their responsibility to the victims of abuse, to their communities and supporters, and to the Church. Having discovered that their body was carrying an illness — one that, if permitted to fester, might turn into an incurable and fatal sepsis — the organization addressed it with the potent a...
Pope Francis’ Decade of Division…
Lent is with us, and so is the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ ascent to the papal throne — an appropriate conjunction, since these are days of tribulation for his papacy. There is the two-front war that Rome finds itself fighting on doctrine and liturgy, trying to squash the church’s Latin Mass traditionalists while more gently restraining the liberal German bishops from forcing a schism on Catholicism’s leftward flank. There is the latest example, in the grim case of the Jesuit priest-artist Father Marko Rupnik, of well-connected clerics accused of sex abuse who seem immune to the rules and reforms that are supposed to put limits on their ministry. And then there are the grim numbers for the Francis-era church, like the accelerating drop in the number of men st...
More Than 70% of US Bishops Allowing Meat on St. Patrick’s Day; Here Are the Rules in Your Diocese…..
In a Nutshell Over 70% of U.S. bishops are allowing Catholics to eat meat on Friday, March 17, even though it’s a Friday during Lent. Many bishops issuing dispensations cite Irish cultural customs celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. Some say the Church should hold the line on the rules of Lent. About 92% of bishops have announced what they plan to do. More than 70% of U.S. diocesan bishops are allowing Catholics to eat meat on St. Patrick’s Day this year, even though it’s a Friday during Lent. With a week to go, 125 of the 176 dioceses in the country are providing a dispensation from the ordinary rules of Lent or a commutation offering Catholics another option to make up for celebrating the occasion by eating the flesh of a warm-blooded animal. Of those saying some form of Yes, 91 a...
Homosexual behavior in the priesthood has no claim to “privacy.” Enough is enough…..
A number of lessons can be drawn from a recent Washington Post story. On March 9, the Post published a nearly 4,000-word story on the work of Catholic Laity and Clergy for Renewal (CLCR), a nonprofit based in Colorado. CLCR meticulously – and legally – collected publicly available data on clergy usage of Grindr and other hetero and same-sex hookup dating apps. It then provided the information to bishops for corrective action. Similar data reported on by The Pillar forced the resignation of former USCCB general secretary, Msgr. Jeffrey Burrill. In the Latin rite, diocesan priests make a promise of celibacy. Religious community priests take a vow of chastity. The intended result is the same: The priest commits himself to refrain from sexual relations...
Not monsters, but “undeniably spooky”: The myth and mystery of mountain lions…
Last winter, I went walking on a gray afternoon between storms. Meltwater pattered the snow around the ponderosas. Fog wound through overhanging boughs. My dog, Taiga, strained at her leash. We turned up a ravine, climbing toward an outcrop above our home where we could watch clouds river down the narrow Methow Valley, on the east slope of Washington’s North Cascades. I turned my head and froze. Through the trees, a brown shape closed in. Not coyote. Not bobcat. Rounded ears; a long bow of tail. Seeing itself seen, the cougar dropped to a crouch a few paces from me. It was still woolly with kittenhood, but big enough to send a chill down my spine. Its golden eyes locked on mine. Time suspended for a moment; I watched from outside myself. I grew up in cougar habitat on Colo...
Lenten fish sandwiches, by the numbers. And the taste…..
It’s Lent, and that means that the nation’s fast food chains have rolled out their seasonal fish sandwich offerings, to compete for the business of hungry Catholics on the go. But while many fast food chains do offer a fish sandwich option this time of year, how do those products stack up against their everyday staples of hamburgers and chicken sandwiches? Is a fish sandwich a Lenten indulgence, or will you save enough on your lunch to put some extra in your Operation Rice Bowl bank for the world’s poor? And on Good Friday — is a fast food fish sandwich more like your “one normal size meal,” or closer to one of the “two small meals which taken together would not exceed the main meal in quantity”? As a former menu pricing manager for Wendy’s corporate (2010 to 2012), analyzing these q...
Meat on St. Patrick’s Day, even though it’s a Friday during Lent? Here are the rules in your diocese…..
St. Patrick died during Lent. Which year isn’t certain. But for one of the leading candidates (A.D. 461), March 17 was a Friday. And while Easter is a moveable feast, St. Patrick’s Day is always during Lent — and sometimes on a Friday. Like this year, for instance. That means trouble — for Friday is also a day of abstinence for Catholics, especially during Lent. Something’s got to give. “You cannot feast and fast at the same time,” noted C.J. Doyle, executive director of the Catholic Action League of Massachusetts, who supports St. Patrick’s Day dispensations from the obligation of abstinence. Since Aug. 15, 1790, when John Carroll lay prostrate on the floor of a castle chapel in Dorset, England, and was ordained America’s first Roman Catholic bishop, St. Patrick’s Day has fallen on a Frid...
Why the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’ election was more somber than festive…
March 13 ought to have been a happy day in Rome. But the mood in and around Vatican City before, during and after the 10th anniversary of Pope Francis’s election was more somber than festive — and not because the anniversary fell during Lent. Rather, the melancholy reflected the current atmosphere in the Holy See, which has gone unremarked for too long and deserves candid description. The prevailing mood in today’s Vatican is one of trepidation. That’s not only what those who question the pontificate’s direction think. It’s also the judgment of some who are comfortable with the past 10 years, and who applaud Pope Francis’s efforts to display God’s mercy in his public persona, but who also know that “kinder, gentler” does not characterize papal governance behind the scenes. Because papal au...
