Dear Friends, From the beginning of my service as Bishop of a diocese, it seemed that every year as the celebrations of Christmas and Easter approached, there would be a profoundly sad event in the diocese or difficult crisis to face for the good of the diocese. Just as I was anticipating with joy the celebrations of the great mysteries of our salvation, something would happen, which, from a human point of view, put a dark cloud over the celebrations and called into question the joy they inspired. Once, when I commented to a brother Bishop about this distressingly too …
Author: Manuel Xavier
Palm Sunday Reflections
Reflection for Palm Sunday Readings Today marks the beginning of Holy Week—and this year, Holy Week couldn’t have fallen at a more opportune time! We are now in the midst of a full-blown COVID-19 pandemic in this country and much of the world. The pandemic dominates the news cycle 24/7. It has radically altered our daily living and the way we interact with others. It’s preventing us from worshipping as a community of believers and receiving the consolation of the sacraments. It’s affecting our lives on multiple levels: physically, emotionally, psychologically, economically, and perhaps even spiritually. Fortunately, Holy Week offers …
POPE FRANCIS STRIPS GOD’S WRATH FROM MASS FOR PANDEMIC
by Jules Gomes • ChurchMilitant.com • April 2, 2020 Catholics mock new liturgy as ‘April Fools’ joke’ You are not signed in as a Premium user; we rely on Premium users to support our news reporting. Sign in or Sign up today! VATICAN CITY – The new “Mass in Time of Pandemic,” published on April 1 by the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship, has been stripped of all references to the “wrath of God.” The liturgy, approved by Pope Francis, eliminates all prayers emphasizing “repentance” — references which abound in the “Recordare domine testamenti” [Remember, Lord, thy covenant] votive Mass — composed and used for deliverance from pestilences since the Black …
Blessed Solanus Casey
Blessed Solanus Casey’s Story Barney Casey became one of Detroit’s best-known priests even though he was not allowed to preach formally or to hear confessions! Barney came from a large family in Oak Grove, Wisconsin. At the age of 21, and after he had worked as a logger, a hospital orderly, a streetcar operator, and a prison guard, he entered St. Francis Seminary in Milwaukee—where he found the studies difficult. He left there, and in 1896, joined the Capuchins in Detroit, taking the name Solanus. His studies for the priesthood were again arduous. On July 24, 1904, Solanus was ordained, …
Doubling down on a bad deal
Perseverance on a difficult but noble path is a virtue. Stubbornness when confronted by irrefutable evidence of a grave mistake is a vice. The latter would seem an apt characterization of a letter sent on Ash Wednesday to the entire College of Cardinals by its new Dean, Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re. In that letter — his first official act as Dean — Cardinal Re reprimands the redoubtable Cardinal Joseph Zen, SDB, emeritus bishop of Hong Kong, for his criticisms of the agreement the Vatican made with the People’s Republic of China in 2018. The bloom is off the Chinese rose …
“Wittenberg” in synodal slow motion
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books. The gears of a vast, well-funded ecclesiastical bureaucracy are grinding away toward outcomes that seem baked into the process from its inception. As Yale’s Carlos Eire masterfully demonstrated in Reformations: The Early Modern World, 1450-1650, there was no one “Protestant Reformation” but rather several religious movements, often in disagreement with each other, that shattered western Christendom in the 16th century. Still, Martin Luther’s protest at Wittenberg on October 31, 1517, …
Don’t Cancel Easter
Michael Warren Davis is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is a frequent contributor to The American Conservative and the author of the forthcoming book The Reactionary Mind (Regnery, 2021). Back when I was a Protestant, one of the Catholic Church’s great draws to me was its teaching that it’s actually a sin to skip formal, collective worship on Sunday. In the Episcopal Church, we were very much into the idea that you could honor the Sabbath “in your own way,” and—well, there’s only one sacrament for middle-class Yankees, and that’s brunch. The rest is optional. Not in the Catholic Church. Here’s a faith that tells us exactly what God expects …
Francis vs. the Deep Church
By Michael Warren Davis. Michael Warren Davis is the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. He is a frequent contributor to The American Conservative and the author of the forthcoming book The Reactionary Mind (Regnery, 2021). Does the Vatican have a General Directorate for Personnel? This is, perhaps, the most boring question ever posed by a writer in Crisis Magazine. And yet, as we fumble for an answer, we also come a little closer to understanding one of the most confounding papacies in 2,000 years of Christian history. Last Friday, the Vatican’s daily news bulletin announced the creation of this new “Directorate,” which would be nestled under the Secretariat of State. …
Seven lessons in forgiveness
Jesus teaches us, “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you….” (Mt. 5:44) If forgiveness and praying for enemies were easy, there would be little reason for Jesus to make the command. Our capacity to forgive depends upon the totality of Christian virtue, and forgiving enemies is the crown jewel of martyrdom. In those vintage black and white cowboy movies, the good guy defeats the bad guy and, with pent-up rage, has an opportunity to exact revenge. But self-control prevails, and the hero surrenders the villain to the authorities. Perhaps this pattern is a cultural reflection of Christian …
St. Thérèse’s Way of Surrendering Prayer to God
FR. JOEL GUIBERT St. Thérèse teaches us that we not only have to surrender ourselves in prayer but that we will also be led to “surrender” our prayer. Surrendering Our Prayer Of course, this is not a question of abandoning prayer, in the sense of stopping prayer, but of surrendering our prayer to God, as it is, and not as we would absolutely want it to be. The temptation to grade our prayer At the end of our prayer, we often assess ourselves, and the grade is sometimes bad: “I missed my prayer”; “My prayer was useless. My mind was completely elsewhere”; …