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The Catholic Church of the 21st century is going to be very different…
I’ve been out of action for the better part of a week with a nasty case of flu, but have used the time to get through most of George Weigel’s new book The Irony of Modern Catholic History I’ll be reviewing it later over at Imaginative Conservative, but the book has reminded me how much God is always elsewhere. Weigel’s book charts the Catholic Church’s centuries long wrestling match with modernity, and reminds us that controversy, quarrels, confusion and seeming chaos have always been part of church life. You could even say one of the marks of the authenticity of the Catholic Church is that her members are engaged in an eternal internal tug of war. We see this as alarming and upsetting. We want everything to be happy and peaceful and calm, but that ain’t reality. The fact is, the...
The top films of 2019…
TOP 3. L to R: Amazing Grace, One Child Nation and A Hidden Life (Neon, Amazon Studios, Fox Searchlight) Religious themes graced an unusual number of notable films in 2019, which our critic says may be the best movie year of the decade — with one notable caveat. Steven D. Greydanus An exquisite art-house film about a beatified martyr. The triumphant arrival of a belated documentary of a celebrated gospel concert. A fact-based drama about an alliance of devout and unbelieving survivors of clerical sex abuse calling for justice. These are just a few of an unusually large crop of notable films that tackled religious and spiritual themes in 2019. Prayer, clerical characters, and church services and liturgical celebrations featured in several films, from the baptism and confession scenes in Mar...
Let’s stop mis-defining genius…
2 minutes Summary Our job as parents is to stop pigeonholing genius to classrooms and books, embrace the countless forms of genius, and see the brilliance in our children. Aesop might refer to what follows as “sour grapes,” but I’m willing to run that risk. Here it goes. In America, there is a radical overemphasis on the relationship between academic grades and overall intelligence. Test scores—typically, the largest component of final grades—receive a hyper-focus. In many circles, whether you are deemed “smart” depends on how well you do on tests. Here’s where the part of the sour grape comes in: I never did well on tests in college. In fact, I don’t remember ever receiving an “A” on an exam. Not once. If final grades depended on quizzes and tests alone, I would have failed out of college...
Cardinal Hummes: Pope’s Pan-Amazon apostolic exhortation to be published soon…
Pope Francis listens as Cardinal Claudio Hummes addresses the Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, Oct. 7, 2019, at the Vatican. (Photo by Andreas Solaro/AFP via Getty Images) In a letter circulated privately to bishops, the Brazilian cardinal advises the document is on schedule to be promulgated later this month or in early February. Cardinal Claudio Hummes, the general relator of the Pan-Amazon Synod last October, has written a letter to bishops saying Pope Francis’ post-synodal apostolic exhortation is expected to be “promulgated by the end of this month or early February.” The letter, which seeks to prepare bishops ahead of the publication of the exhortation, offers them some suggestions in order to “discreetly support you, as Ordinary, in communion ...
Pope appoints first woman to managerial position in Secretariat of State…
Vatican City, Jan 15, 2020 / 10:53 am (CNA).- Pope Francis has named Dr. Francesca Di Giovanni as undersecretary for multilateral affairs in the Vatican Secretariat of State, marking the first time that a woman has been appointed to a managerial position in the secretariat. Di Giovanni, 66, was appointed undersecretary for the Section in Relations in States. She has worked as an official in the department for more than 25 years, with specialties including humanitarian law, communications, migrants and refugees, and the status of women, according to Vatican Media. She will now work with Monsignor Miroslaw Wachowski, who also serves as undersecretary for the Section in Relations in States, but focuses on bilateral affairs. Di Giovanni’s field of multilateral affairs focuses on the interactio...
These two stars might merge in an explosion visible from Earth this century…
By the end of the 21st century, stargazers may witness a “new star” seem to appear in the constellation Sagitta the Arrow. Located roughly 7,800 light-years away, the two stars, collectively called V Sagittae, are spiraling closer and closer together. And as they twirl around each other, the larger star is dumping material onto its smaller, white dwarf companion. Ultimately, the two will collide and coalesce, creating a powerful burst of light that astronomers estimate will make V Sagittae the brightest star in the night sky for about a month. By referring to an archive of observations dating back more than a century, a team of researchers recently determined the two stars in the V Sagittae system have been spiraling in toward each other at an ever-increasing rate. Currently, i...
Cardinal Pell transferred to new maximum-security prison after drone incident…
Melbourne, Australia, Jan 13, 2020 / 10:30 am (CNA).- Cardinal George Pell has reportedly been transferred out of the Melbourne prison in which he has been incarcerated for more than a year after a drone illegally flew over the prison grounds. According to the Herald Sun newspaper, Pell was moved out of Melbourne Assessment Prison after a drone flew over the prison garden in an apparent attempt to capture footage of him working in the prison garden. A spokesperson for the Australian Justice Department confirmed the drone flight in a statement released to media on Monday. The cardinal has now been transferred to a maximum-security prison southwest of the city. Pell had been in the Melbourne prison, located within the downtown area of the city, since his sentencing in December of 2018 o...
Benedict is defending celibacy from the media, not from Francis…
If you were HBO, you couldn’t ask for better publicity. Just as their television series “The New Pope” presents the crisis rising between the fictional Pope John Paul III and his predecessor Benedict XIII, news arises of a possible “conflict” between Pope Francis and the pope emeritus, Benedict XVI. On Sunday, it was revealed that Benedict had co-authored a short book with Guinean Cardinal Robert Sarah strongly supporting celibacy in the Church. Sarah heads the Vatican’s office on liturgy and is recognized as one of the most conservative of Francis’s department chiefs. The short book, called Des Profoundeurs De Nos Couers [“From the Depths of Our Hearts”], consists of a chapter by each of the co-authors, as well as a jointly written introduction and conclusion. The book was written in the ...
A study of sloth in the life of Lot…
In Bible Study in my Parish we have been reading through Genesis. This past evening we read of Lot and the horrifying results of his decision to pitch his tent toward Sodom. We also see in his life a significant spiritual problem: sloth, one of the seven deadly sins. Sloth is a sorrow, sadness, or aversion to the good things God offers. Rather than being joyful and zealous to obtain these gifts, the slothful person sees them as too much trouble to obtain and is averse to the changes such gifts might introduce into his life. This is clearly the case with Lot, who resists the attempts of God to rescue him and his family from the sinful city of Sodom, which is about to be destroyed. Let’s examine his struggle in several steps. I. Roots – Lot’s personal troubles were many, but for our pu...
G.K. Chesterton’s historic home in England faces demolition — here’s how you can help stop it…
ABOVE: G.K. Chesteron’s home Overroads in Beaconsfield, England (Photo by Ken Sladen). BELOW: G.K. Chesterton sits with an unidentified boy at Overroads (National Portrait Gallery Photo Collection). G.K. Chesterton’s Historic Home in England Faces Demolition Admirers of G.K. Chesterton worldwide have launched a campaign to stop developers from knocking down Overroads and putting up an apartment block. K.V. Turley LONDON — Devotees of G.K. Chesterton are up in arms over plans to demolish the acclaimed Catholic writer and philosopher’s former home, Overroads. Developers want to knock down the house and replace it with an apartment block. Dale Ahlquist, the president of the Society of Gilbert Keith Chesterton and of The Chesterton Schools Network, has described the proposed action a...
Archbishop Gänswein: Benedict XVI wrote text, but did not agree to be book’s co-author…
Vatican City, Jan 14, 2020 / 05:58 am (CNA).- Archbishop Georg Ganswein, the private secretary of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, said Tuesday the former pontiff was not informed he would be presented as co-author of a new book on priestly celibacy and that Benedict has asked for his name and photo to be removed from the cover. According to the German-language news agency KNA, Ganswein said Jan. 14 that he had called Cardinal Robert Sarah that morning, at Benedict’s request, to ask the book’s publisher to remove the signature of the pope emeritus from the introduction and conclusion, because he had not co-authored them. Ganswein said that the chapter in the main part of the book is, however, “100 percent Benedict,” according to KNA. “It was a misunderstanding – without questioning Cardin...
How an entire town went quiet for an extraordinary Stradivarius experiment…
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