Discover

It was one last family walk in the garden.   Benedict XVI’s family accompanied him down the hill from the Mater Ecclesiae residence to St. Peter’s Basilica Jan.2, just as they had often walked with him in the same Vatican Gardens during his pontificate and in his retirement, often praying the Rosary in the afternoons.  Viewers may have wondered who the five women were who gathered around Benedict’s mortal remains in the chapel and then followed him to the basilica. They are who Benedict called his “family”: his secretary, Birgit Wansin, notable for being one of the few people able to decipher Benedict’s tiny handwriting; and the four consecrated laywomen of Memores Domini, Cristina, Carmella, Loredana and Rosella.  [embedded content] The Memores Domini, members of Communion ...

Some years ago I wrote a blog post, Is the Church a Cruise Ship or a Battleship? I was surprised at the amount of negative commentary I got. For example, “How dare you compare the Church to an instrument of war!” Other comments lamented recourse to any violent imagery, ever. Still others called for bans on songs such as “Onward Christian Soldiers,” “I am On the Battlefield for My Lord,” and so forth. You might say that the response from the anti-military group was “militant.” I certainly wasn’t feelin’ the love! Most of those comments I didn’t publish because I didn’t want “war” to erupt in the combox. Of course the reference to a battleship was by way of analogy, not literal. No one is insisting that the Church should actually use sixteen inch guns against unbelievers or purveyors of sin....

[embedded content] Interviewer: So, Pope Benedict’s lifting of restrictions on celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite according to the 1962 Missal did not last as long as he intended. As Pope Emeritus, he was around to see the promulgation of Pope Francis’ MOTU PROPRIO Traditionis Custodes. Was he disappointed? Archbishop Gänswein: It hit him pretty hard. I believe it broke Pope Benedict’s heart to read the new MOTU PROPRIO, because his intention had been to help those who simply found a home in the Missale Vetustum—to find inner peace, to find liturgical peace—in order to draw them away from Marcel Lefebvre. And if you think about how many centuries the old Mass was the source of spiritual life and nourishment for many people including many saints, it’s impossible to imagine...

“We live in a world that is so focused on the self and individualism and each person making him- or herself their highest authority, that when you apply that sort of worldview and that sort of way of thinking to reading Scripture, then it very quickly becomes…all about me. And that’s entirely the wrong way to read Scripture…Especially as our culture has been influenced by the Protestant Reformation and Protestant Christianity, I think that we have lost our way in terms of how we are supposed to read Scripture,” said James L. Papandrea, Ph.D., a professor of Church History and Historical Theology at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. Papandrea is the author of books, including “Reading Scripture Like the Early Church: Seven Insight...

Hey everybody, God rest Pope Benedict XVI. If you haven’t already done this, take a minute right now to pray for the repose of Benedict’s soul, and to pray in thanksgiving for both his life and the saving mystery of Jesus Christ, to which Benedict gave himself intellectually, pastorally, and spiritually. May perpetual light shine upon him. May he enter the eternal glory of the Lord, Jesus Christ. For many Catholics today, Benedict’s own words, preached at the funeral of Pope St. John Paul II, ring true: “Our hearts are full of sadness, yet at the same time of joyful hope and profound gratitude.” —I am writing this Tuesday Pillar Post from the airport, as I get ready to board a plane for Rome, where Ed and I will report on the mourning and funeral Mass of Benedict XVI, and spend some time i...