Tag: Pope Francis

If I Were the Pope, I’d Deal with China Differently

CB Toder aka Mama Toad
CB Toder aka Mama Toad
57
 

The Catholic Church, in her long and storied history, has lots of experience dealing with dictatorial powers that see her as a rival.

Throughout much of European history, bishops were a different class of wealthy noblemen. Rulers rightly saw bishops as potential threats. Many kings and princes attempted to control the ability to appoint the bishops within their rule. The response of the Church varied over time and place, but the essential lesson is that the Church should not, can not, cede her power to appoint bishops to the local authorities. When she does, it goes badly.

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Bishop Wash
Bishop Wash
128
 

I haven’t studied this topic but wanted to throw out small observations I’ve had. The sample size is small but I wanted to see what Ricochet thought about the topic. Recently, someone here on Ricochet recommended the book The Sparrow by Mary Doria Russell. I just finished it and it’s an interesting read. A radio […]
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Back to the Pews

Samuel Block
Samuel Block
158
 

In honor of this special day, I thought I’d write a brief (edit: I tried to keep it brief, I really did!) response to a post @westernchauvinist put together some time ago. Here, she asked the Ricochetti what it would take to bring them back to church. Though it elicited many thoughts at the time, I’m finally getting back to you, WC.

Excepting the funeral masses I’ve worked this year, this has been the first I attended all year – before I’m accused of being one of those who steals the seats of you regular attendees during the holidays, I’ll admit that I haven’t gone to a Christmas Mass in years. I wasn’t raised in the Catholic Church, but I’ve known for some time that the church of my mother’s family is the one I belong to, and that any return to a hospital for sinners would be to a Catholic hospital.

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The Pope, Pachamama, Politics, and the Periphery: Everything Is Connected

Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
7014
 

In a previous post, I characterized the currently ongoing Amazonian Synod as “one of the more bizarre (and potentially very destructive) events of the Francis pontificate.” Little did I know of the horrors that were about to occur when I wrote that.

On Friday, October 4, to get the festivities rolling, a “tree-planting” ceremony took place in the Vatican Gardens to consecrate the synod to St. Francis of Assisi. But what we got was a pagan ritual centered around the now infamous Pachamama.

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What Does One Do When the Pope Is Woke?

Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
7017
 

One of the more bizarre (and potentially very destructive) events of the Francis pontificate will take place October 6-27 in Rome. It is a Special Assembly of the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region, entitled Amazonia: New Paths for the Church and for an Integral Ecology. The lead-up to this synod consisted of talk about the lack of priests in the Pan-Amazon region and that, without priests, the Sacraments were not available on a regular basis. This is a serious concern for a Church given the mission by Jesus Christ to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” (Mt 28:19).

A story like this, wherein the Institute of the Consolata for Foreign Missions – a Catholic mission, mind you – has had priests and laypeople working among the Yanomamis in Brazil but have failed to baptize one single soul, gives a face to this serious concern.

One might think that a Jesuit pope would look to the Society of Jesus to find a good missionary priest or two cut from the mold of St. Francis Xavier or Matteo Ricci or St. Isaac Jogues or St. Jean de Brebeuf to go to the Amazon region and preach the Gospel. Or one might think that this special gathering of bishops in Rome to (allegedly) deal with a priest shortage might be about evangelization and an increase in missionary activity.

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Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
76
 

Remember Uncle Ted? Theodore McCarrick? Former cardinal of the Catholic Church and money man/glad hander for Pope Francis? If you don’t, he is the despicable homo-predator and poster boy for the sex abuse crisis in the USA. And other than being forced to live a life of prayer and penance, and relegated to the lay […]
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Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
179
 

Pope Francis has just completed a 3-day Apostolic Journey to the United Arab Emirates. This trip comes 800 years after the meeting of St. Francis of Assisi with the Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil. It made history for the fact that Pope Francis prayed the first papal mass on the Arabian Peninsula and for the signing, by Pope […]
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Unwoke Caveman Lawyer
Unwoke Caveman Lawyer
66
 

Pope Francis marked World Day of the Sick this week by meditating on Matthew 10:8: “Freely you have received, freely give.”  Some of his thoughts: Volunteer work passes on values, behaviours and ways of living born of a deep desire to be generous. It is also a means of making health care more humane. A […]
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Pete EE
Pete EE
55
 

The 90’s came and went. The priestly abuse scandal came, went and returned. Little was done to fix the problem. As has been discussed here, those who tried to act meaningfully were marginalized. Now, of all people, it looks like Francis is taking action. https://nypost.com/2018/12/03/pope-francis-says-gay-men-shouldnt-join-catholic-clergy/   Preview Open
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Sisyphus
Sisyphus
1810
 

As a confessional Lutheran, I have followed the discussions here concerning the latest cascade of scandals from the Roman Catholic Church. I have sat silently on provocative observations on the daggers that Martin Luther thrust into the corpulent target of  the 16th Century papal rule and conduct. Those responses are not constructive today. Those sheep […]
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Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
5712
 

In his 1987 Christmas address to the Roman Curia, Pope St. John Paul II, deviated from the custom of giving a year-in-review address and instead spoke of a new vision for the Church. The work of the great Swiss theologian Hans Urs von Balthasar had suggested that four biblical images of the Church, based on […]
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‘To Bear Witness to Corruption in the Hierarchy of the Catholic Church Was a Painful Decision’

Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
8115
 

So begins the third “testimony” of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, on the ongoing sexual abuse/coverup scandal in the Church (h/t @9thdistrictneighbor). With this latest installment of “he said”/”he said,” Archbishop Viganò restates the key points of his original testimony and also answers the rebuke he received from Marc Cardinal Ouellet.

It was good to have the key points listed succinctly and to have an answer to Cardinal Ouellet’s letter, but what touched me most were the reasons Viganò gave for writing his testimonies. He strikes me as a man of great faith (which is in direct contrast to how I view those involved in this scandal).

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Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
159
 

The XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, on the theme “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment”, opened today at the Vatican (Yippee!). In his opening remarks, Pope Francis resorted to a condemnation of one of his favorite topics: clericalism. Preview Open
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Scott Wilmot
Scott Wilmot
73
 

John L. Allen Jr., a respected Vaticanista, asks that question in an article entitled, How the USCCB could pitch a Vatican-backed McCarrick probe. Crux is not a site I frequent, but I stumbled across Allen’s report at one of my favorite sites, Catholic World Report, in an article by Christopher Altieri entitled, The Week in Review: China, […]
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