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The Vatican spy tapes are absolutely fascinating…..
Hey everybody, Today is the Feast of St. Brigid, and this is The Tuesday Pillar Post. St. Brigid was the daughter of a Christian slave; she was born in 451, in a small settlement along the coast of the Irish Sea. Born into slavery, Brigid developed a reputation for holiness as a young child, and at 10 became a servant in the household of her father, a local Irish chieftain. Brigid annoyed her father because she had a penchant for charity, but the things she gave away to the poor belonged to him, not her. There is a legend which says that her father once tried to sell Brigid to the King of Leinster — but while the men were discussing the sale, Brigid saw a beggar pass by. She picked up her father’s jeweled sword, and gave it to the beggar, encouraging him to sell it for food, to feed his fa...
Retired Anglican Bishop Peter Forster Becomes Catholic, News Report Confirms…
Forster had served as a member of the English Anglican-Roman Catholic Committee. He has been critical of a “drift” in ecumenical relations “from a vision of full visible unity to an essentially debased vision of reconciled diversity,” the Church Times said. The retired Anglican bishop had supported the ordination of women to the Anglican priesthood and the Chester diocese was the first to have a woman bishop. At the same time, he was critical of the Church of England’s approach to women bishops and how this affected relations with other Christian bodies. He thought it was “astonishing” that the Anglican-Roman Catholic International Commission had not published anything on the ordination of women. The Church of England broke from the Catholic Church in the 16th century, adopting a different...
Last Things: Fundamentalism, Dorothy Day, iconoclasm, and the hard truth about fasting…
David Mills, a Contributing Editor of the NOR, has been Editor of Touchstone and Executive Editor of First Things. He writes columns for Our Sunday Visitor, the Catholic Herald, and National Catholic Register. I’ve spent my Catholic life explaining to Catholics how their conservative Protestant friends — Evangelical, Anglican, Lutheran — can legitimately love and serve the Lord, despite being in substantial error. And despite a continuing dislike for the Catholic Church that sometimes slides into contempt. Then I come across forms of insanely anti-Catholic conservative Evangelicalism — of the sort usually called fundamentalist — and I begin to question this work. For example, the man who declared on Facebook, “If your celebrating Santa your celebrating Satan.” (The “your” is his.) That was...
Wide of the mark by 100 yards: Falklands Coriolis effect story shows how myths in science originate and propagate…
Recently my boss—Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory—and I got into a disagreement regarding the accuracy of a story in one of my old textbooks about how the Coriolis effect allegedly played a role in the Battle of the Falkland Islands, a World War I naval engagement that occurred in December 1914. We were writing a popular article on how the Coriolis effect was first conceived by Jesuit astronomers and mathematicians in the 17th century. (Guy is a member of that religious order, formally known as the Society of Jesus.) Guy wanted to include the story about the effect’s role in the battle as an example of a historical myth. I was skeptical that such a commonly accepted story could be false. Somewhat to my surprise, however, and a little to my chagrin, Guy turned out to be ...
If you live near Allentown, Pennsylvania, it’s time for another Cooks with Collars. Vote early and vote often!…
Inspired by great parish priests and vibrant parish communities, COOKS WITH COLLARS is an online celebration and a virtual cooking competition for the entire Diocese of Allentown. In the spirit of great parish festivals everywhere, COOKS WITH COLLARS is an opportunity to work together and have fun in order to raise funds for local parishes and Catholic Charities ministries in the Diocese of Allentown. When you check out the 2022 COOKS WITH COLLARS videos, you’ll be more surprised than ever at the awe-inspiring and occasionally frightening kitchen skills of our parish priests. From there, join friends and fellow parishioners to VOTE EARLY AND VOTE OFTEN for your favorite chef! Sponsorship contributions support Catholic Charities ministries while your voting dollars go directly to the parish...
God waits on you more than you wait on Him…
The late great Tom Petty sang: “The waiting is the hardest partEvery day you get one more yardYou take it on faith, you take it to the heartThe waiting is the hardest partYeah, the waiting is the hardest part” Isn’t it true? Waiting is hard. Waiting on God can be very hard. Some of the most common questions Christians are asked (or ask themselves) are about the seeming contradiction between God’s goodness and human suffering are really about waiting on God to do something, generally to do what we want him to do. Why would a good God allow innocent people to suffer? Why do bad things happen to good people? If God really loves us, why doesn’t He take away suffering? These questions, and many others like them, haunt many people. There seems to be no good answer. But, is that...
Beijing games, the Neil Young experience, and only in New York…
Happy Friday friends, Today is the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympic Games, an event which, as I mentioned last week, normally commands my enthusiasm. Of course, this year the games are being held in Beijing, capital city of the exemplar of international cooperation and domestic felicity that is the People’s Republic of China, which is putting quite the chill on things. An unspecified number of athletes from an unknown number of countries are expected to sit out the opening ceremony in a silent demonstration against the Communist Party’s ongoing brutality being visited on the Uyghur people, the trampling of civil liberties in Hong Kong, and the jailing of journalists who make too free a mention of things like these. Yesterday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told American athletes to...
He wants you to come home…
Somehow, on the scales of a father’s love, one child outweighs everything. And that is how God, the maker of space and time, is looking at you right now. When we wandered into the forest of sin, God wasn’t looking down saying, “Go ahead, destroy yourself. You deserve it. You chose destruction. Live with it.” No. He said, “Take everything. Take my life. I’ll be your food in the Eucharist. I’ll be waiting for you in Confession. I just want my son. I just want my daughter to come home.” Somehow, on the scales of a father’s love, one child outweighs everything. And that is how God, the maker of space and time, is looking at you right now. We think it’s so hard to love God as Catholics, don’t we? The reality is: A love strong enough to create a un...
Two families and the communion of saints…
Despite being immersed for over 30 years in the study of modern Polish history, I must confess that I’d never heard of the heroic Ulma family until recently. I’ll get to the circumstances of my being introduced to these 20th-century martyrs in a moment. But first, consider their story. Józef Ulma was a prominent personality in Markowa, a village in southeastern Poland. Born in 1900, he had a more extensive education than many of his neighbors and was a farmer, a librarian, and an accomplished photographer at a time when that art form took imagination and great skill. His wife Wiktoria, 12 years younger, was the mother of three girls (Stanisława, Barbara, and Maria) and three boys (Władysław, Franciszek, and Antoni). When the Ulmas’ trial of conscience came in 1944, the children ranged in a...
Undoing the damage done by Instagram…
Social media is making an old problem worse by feeding obsession with physical beauty. It offers a new twist, however: It puts us on display to more people than ever while hiding our hearts as never before, and our hearts are hurting. On Jan. 30 former Miss USA Cheslie Kryst fell — or, New York police suspect, jumped — to her death from a tall building. Her last words were on Instagram, asking for “rest and peace.” Last year in Allure magazine, she wrote of her struggles with Instagram: “I have deleted comments on my social media pages that had vomit emojis and insults telling me I wasn’t pretty enough to be Miss USA or that my muscular build was actually a ‘man body,’” she wrote. “Why work so hard to capture the dreams I’ve been taught by society to want when I continue to only find empti...
Cardinal Hollerich of Luxembourg Says Church Teaching on Homosexuality Is ‘No Longer Correct’…
BERLIN (CNS) — The president of the Commission of the Bishops’ Conferences of the European Union said he believes the current church teaching on homosexuality is wrong, not based in science. In an interview with the German Catholic news agency KNA, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg also said if he were Cologne Cardinal Rainer Maria Woelki, he would tender his resignation, but the cardinal “is a good Christian, and he will certainly find the right way for himself.” Cardinal Hollerich spoke to KNA about the public campaign by more than 100 Catholic Church employees who recently outed themselves as queer in Germany. Queer is a collective term for people who are not heterosexual and whose sense of personal identity and gender does not correspond with their birth sex. “I believe that...
Sisters of Life go sledding in Central Park as Winter Storm Kenan blankets New York City…
These nuns went flying in Central Park! A group of nuns from the Sisters of Life retreated to the park Saturday morning for a brief sledding break. Three of the sisters, in their white habits and snow boots, sat on a circular sled as another gave them a push. They squealed in delight as they zoomed downhill, tumbling off at the bottom. A group of nuns from Sisters of Life went sledding in Central Park.Robert Miller for NY Post “To the baptism!” yelled one of the nuns after she sled down the hill.Robert Miller for NY Post “OK. To the baptism!” one of the nuns exclaimed after the quick ride was over. Sister Magdalene, the local superior, said the nuns ventured to the park when it appeared they would not be able to travel from their East 66th Street convent to their crisis pregnancy center in...
