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Can (and should) women be ordained Catholic deacons?
New deacons from the Pontifical North American College kneel during their ordination in St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican Sept. 29, 2022. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) In August 2016, a commission was formed in order to look at questions that were raised with regard to women and the diaconate by the International Union of Superiors General, who asked Pope Francis about it in a May 2016 audience they had with the Holy Father. This first commission was held and examined primarily the historical question. The result of that commission was that they were at odds with one another. There was no consensus. In fact, the quote from Pope Francis is that they were “toads from different wells.” Then, following the Amazon synod, which again raised the question of admitting women to the diaconate, Pop...
Are you Catholic, yes, but in a different way?
In one of his most important works, A Grammar of Assent, St. John Henry Newman describes the development of thought in one true God and the importance of articulating the notion that there is only one Divine Author; There is one God, such and such in Nature and Attributes. I say, ‘such and such,’ for unless I explain what I mean by ‘one God,’ I use words which may mean anything or nothing. I may mean a mere anima mundi; or an initial principle which once was in action and now is not, or collective humanity. I speak then of he God of the theist and the Christian: a God who is numerically One, who is Personal; the Author, sustainer, and Finisher of all things, the life of the Law and Order, the Moral Governor; one who is supreme and sole . . .[1] The premise of St. Newman’s argument for beli...
Jesuit Superior: Father Marko Rupnik Was Automatically Excommunicated for ‘Absolution of an Accomplice’ in 2019…
The clergyman committed a crime of the sacrament of confession, which is one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church. The Jesuit is alleged to have also sexually abused members of a women’s institute of religious life in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The Jesuit superior general, Father Arturo Sosa, has confirmed that Jesuit artist Father Marko Rupnik incurred an automatic excommunication in 2019 for absolving a woman he had sex with, a fact his religious order was aware of but did not disclose until now. According to a report by The Associated Press, Father Sosa disclosed this new information Wednesday in a briefing with journalists in Rome. Abusing the sacrament of confession in this manner is one of the most serious crimes in the Catholic Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the...
Who knows the difference it might make to bring face-to-face singing into our homes once again…
In her book Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age, Sherry Turkle makes a commonsense suggestion so simple we might miss its power and urgency. Make face to face conversations normal again. Here I offer a corollary suggestion. Make face to face singing normal again. The changes of practice in these two areas have much in common. For starters, while dramatic—and indeed of civilizational import—changes in conversation and singing have become so normal as to be barely noticed. We still ‘hear’ and feel like we participate in much talk and still ‘hear’ much singing. In fact, in a sense we’re fairly drowning in talk and music, so we might not feel the absence of either. But the reality is otherwise. “We are being silenced by our technologies.” Turkle’s words about conversati...
Pope’s Wednesday Audience: Remain Vigilant Against Pride and ‘Well-Mannered Demons’…
“It is a danger not of a psychological, but of a spiritual order, a real snare of the evil spirit,” Francis said. “Indeed, he awaits precisely the moment in which we are too sure of ourselves, this is the danger: ‘I am sure of myself, I have won, now I am well’ is that moment that the evil spirit waits for, when everything is going well, when things are going ‘swimmingly’ and we ‘have the wind in our sails.’” General audience with Pope Francis at the Vatican, Dec. 14, 2022. Daniel Ibáñez / CNA The pope explained that when we let our spiritual guard down, the devil, who knows how to dress himself up to look nice, can enter our hearts. To illustrate this point, Francis recalled one of Jesus’ parables, as told in the Gospel of Luke. Jesus said: “Let your loins be girded and your lamps burning...
Archbishop Paglia Diverts ‘Hundreds of Thousands of Euros’ From Funds for Poor Families and Orphans, Uses Money to Renovate His Personal Apartment…
Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia diverted hundreds of thousands of euros allocated to support missionary and charitable works while he served as president of the Pontifical Council for the Family. Paglia used much of the money to finance building projects in Rome, including the renovation of his personal apartment, The Pillar has learned. According to multiple independent sources with knowledge of the events, Archbishop Paglia confirmed in a 2015 memo to Holy See financial officials that hundreds of thousands of euros had been paid to an Italian construction contractor instead of going to missionary and charitable projects to support poor families and orphans. While Paglia claimed to have repaid some of the money diverted from charitable funds, sources say that he did so with other donations to ...
This is the essence and importance of the Immaculate Conception…
by Donal Anthony Foley – Every year during Advent, on Dec. 8, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, one of the most prominent Marian feasts in the Church’s liturgical year. This celebration centers on the principle that Our Lady, from the very first moment of her existence, was free from original sin. Whereas the rest of humanity are conceived in a state of sin, she was born without this handicap; thus, she was immaculately conceived in a state of sanctifying grace. It should be noted that original sin is not a thing in itself, but rather, a deprivation of grace. Catholic theology teaches that this wonderful exception in the case of Mary was due to the merits of Christ’s death and resurrection, which were foreseen by God and applied to her in light of the fact that she w...
Yet more new twists in the Vatican’s most spectacular unresolved mystery…
Listen to this story: ROME – Vatican mysteries are a bit like volcanoes, in that they may remain dormant for a long time, but when they erupt, like Mauna Loa in Hawaii right not, it’s usually something spectacular. That’s what seems to be happening right now with the case of Emanuela Orlandi, perhaps the most prodigious such mystery story of the last half-century. Orlandi, the 15-year-old daughter of a Vatican functionary, disappeared into thin air in 1983. Ever since, her fate has generated a beehive of theories and speculation, usually fueled by would-be bombshell revelations which, upon examination, turn out to deliver less than promised. RELATED: Vatican sampler basket: Conspiracy theories, hacks and quotes that weren’t In brief, there have been suggestions over the years that Orlandi ...
The Advent of Jennifer Lawrence, Jesuitical silences, and the spirit of Notre Dame…
Happy Friday friends, I hope your Advent is coming along well. It’s always a little bit of a fight for me to stay focused during the first few weeks of the season, not to preemptively look ahead to Christmas, and to actually make space to focus on “the coming of Christ in the fullness of time,” as the Church says — or the end of the world, as I like to call it. I do take a kind of delight in spending a few weeks trying positively to anticipate the Second Coming, and with it the breaking and remaking of the world. It is tantalizing counter-cultural. People who live in imminent expectation of the end times are something of a shorthand for lunatics. And this isn’t wholly without just cause — they have, after all, tended to be wrong, more often than not. But even if it weren’t for the somewhat...
The Truth About Life: A Response to Professors Kay and Ostermann…
On December 5, 2022, two of my colleagues at the University of Notre Dame, Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann, both on the faculty of the Keough School of Global Affairs, published on op-ed in the Chicago Tribune purporting to refute “lies,” “intentional misinformation,” and “utter falsities,” that have served to “erode access to abortion” in the United States. The day after, Fr. John I. Jenkins, C.S.C., President of the University of Notre Dame, published a letter to the editor to the Tribune stating: . . . Tamara Kay and Susan Ostermann are, of course, free to express their opinions on our campus or in any public forum. Because they chose to identify themselves as Notre Dame faculty members, I write to state unequivocally that their essay does not reflect the view and values of the Universit...
Isabel Cristina Mrad Campos, Known as ‘The Maria Goretti of Brazil,’ Beatified 40 Years After Her Death…
The cardinal then highlighted that since she was a child, Isabel learned the values of the Gospel and they took root in her heart. MARIANA, Brazil — Cardinal Raymundo Damasceno Assis presided Dec. 10 at the solemn ceremony of beatification for Isabel Cristina Mrad Campos, a young martyr known as “the Maria Goretti of Brazil.” The Archdiocese of Mariana in the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais reported the Mass was held at the Shrine of Our Lady of Mercy in Barbacena before thousands of faithful present. The newly beatified Brazilian was 20 years old when she was brutally murdered in 1982 by a man who unsuccessfully tried to rape her, as also happened with St. Maria Goretti, the Italian girl who died defending her virtue and who before dying forgave her murderer. In his homily, Cardinal Damas...
Our Lady of Guadalupe: 6 Things to Know and Share…
Dec. 12 is the commemoration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. In the United States, the day is a feast. Linked to this day is Dec. 9, which is the optional memorial of Juan Diego, to whom she appeared. Here are 6 things to know and share… 1) Who was Juan Diego? More formally known as St. Juan Diego Cuauhtlatoatzin, he lived from 1474 to 1548. According to his biography on the Vatican web site, Little is known about the life of Juan Diego before his conversion, but tradition and archaelogical and iconographical sources, along with the most important and oldest indigenous document on the event of Guadalupe, “El Nican Mopohua” (written in Náhuatl with Latin characters, 1556, by the Indigenous writer Antonio Valeriano), give some information on the life of the saint and the appariti...
