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Hey everybody, Today is Tuesday in Lent’s fourth week, and you’re reading The Tuesday Pillar Post. First, some good news — we have almost made it to the end of Lent! Soon, in early April, we’ll celebrate Palm Sunday, Holy Week, and then the gift of Easter itself. If you’ve been living an especially penitential Lent, you might have something of a countdown clock to Easter already going, with full knowledge of how many seconds more you’ll need to keep up your Lenten penances before it’s Easter somewhere. Or if you’ve had an especially fruitful Lent, full of keen spiritual insights and divine intimacy, I suppose you probably aren’t thinking about it coming to an end at all. I don’t know, that hasn’t been my experience! But if you’re like me, and your Lent started off great, and has now gotten...

(Image of eye: Kalea Jerielle/Unsplash.com; image of man and fire: Adam Wilson/Unsplash.com) A common talking point among the woke is the claim that “woke” is just a term of abuse that has no clear meaning.  Whether many of them really believe this or are just obfuscating is not clear, but in any event it isn’t true.  I would suggest that what critics of wokeness have in mind is pretty obviously captured in the following definition: Wokeness is a paranoid delusional hyper-egalitarian mindset that tends to see oppression and injustice where they do not exist or greatly to exaggerate them where they do exist. Examples would be: Characterizing as racist “microaggressions” behaviors that in fact are either perfectly innocuous or at worst just ordinary rudeness; condemning some e...

The order to hang them came as they saw their hopes crushed, when the victorious Americans raised the flag above the battle site. They were the second group to die. The first had already been whipped, branded and then hanged for the offense of fighting against the United States. The Irish Catholic soldiers of El Batallón de San Patricio had left the American army to fight for Mexico in the Mexican-American War — a war of, shall we say, dubious justification. Which is to say, pretty much none.  Americans in favor of the war rationalized it in several ways, Ralph Frasca of Belmont Abbey College explained in the journal Catholic Southwest. They claimed that “Mexico wronged Texan and American citizens, impeded the American ‘manifest destiny’ of expansion, possessed land that pro-slavery f...

A blessing service as part of a day of action in defiance to the Vatican’s ruling on same-sex unions in the Youth Church in Würzburg, Germany, May 10, 2021. (Gehrig/CNA Deutsch) The consequences of the Synodal Way cannot be gauged yet. Much was decided: The dioceses in Germany are to enable the blessing of homosexual couples. They are to allow lay people to preach at Mass. They are to propagate an image of man that complies with gender ideology and ask the Pope to lift the obligation to celibacy and to examine whether women can be admitted into the ministry after all. The discussion of all these topics was justified with the prevention of abuse. Officially, the Synodal Way had been established for this purpose. Since then, however, that purpose has merely served as an all-too transparent f...

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Mar 17, 2023 It’s been one of those weeks. The morning after switching our family cell phones from a major carrier to a budget carrier, my own phone stopped working. The current status is that whenever I dial any number, no matter when or what, the call is answered by the new carrier’s technical support department! A couple of hours of trouble-shooting with the support team were terminated suddenly when the technician reported that “a huge number of calls are now coming in on this same issue, so it must be a system problem on our end; it may take up to 72 hours to fix it.” I’m not complaining. This is what we call in the trouble trade a very minor nightmare, but it does remind us that we are now joined at the hip to our cell phones...

The deputy chairman of the German bishops’ conference on Thursday invited Catholics in his diocese to contact parishes for liturgical blessings of their same-sex partnerships and other relationships regarded as morally illicit in the Catholic Church. The move comes after the “synodal way” – an assembly of laity and bishops aiming to reform the Church in Germany – approved last week a resolution urging German bishops to officially permit same-sex blessings in their dioceses. Because the Vatican announced recently that such blessings are impossible for the Church, some Catholics have asked whether Bishop Franz-Josef Bode’s announcement is formally an act of schism, a canonical crime which carries with it the penalty of excommunication. To date, the Vatican has not declared Bode, ...

As noted last week, the Gospels of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Sundays of Lent can vary, but priests can always use the “scrutiny readings” — which also happen to be the readings prescribed for this year in the Lectionary — that are intended to prepare catechumens for Baptism at Easter. Last week’s focused on the “living water” of grace Jesus promised the Samaritan Woman. This week focuses on Jesus as “the light of the world” who enlightens everyone who comes to him. This is one reason why, in Baptism, a child is presented with a lighted candle to “keep the flame of faith alive in his heart” until that day when — like the Wise Virgins — he “go[es] out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly Kingdom.”  In today’s Gospel, Jesus “saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked hi...

Papal courtier Austen Ivereigh has written two very useful biographies of the Holy Father and another book together with him. It would be churlish to deny him a measure of celebration of Pope Francis on his 10th anniversary. Yet the occasion does not require questionable claims to be made, and, regrettably, Ivereigh has done just that, in writing that Pope Francis has “sought a transformation of the internal life and culture of the Catholic Church, at the heart of which is a conversion of power.” Ivereigh argues that “not long ago the Vatican was notorious for its haughty manner, its centralism and its authoritarianism.” Climate change has since come to the Vatican, Ivereigh implies, with the icy winds of John Paul and Benedict being replaced by the gentle, warm breeze of Pope Francis. Ive...

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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...