Holy Week & the Notre Dame fire

HOLY WEEK & THE NOTRE DAME FIRE
M. Jean Duchesne
via Catholic News Agency

"Notre Dame on fire and perhaps unusable for months if not years is undoubtedly a trial. But faith does not allow to see this as a punishment or the confirmation of a decline and fall. There is some comfort to be found in the massive sense of affliction and solidarity of non-believers, since it proves that for them, however irreligious they are, the visible Church is not a mere remnant of the past, but a vital part of the scenery, without which they themselves miss something. Yet, in the end, this support does not make that much of a difference.

"What is decisive is the knowledge that Jesus Christ the Groom will never abandon his bride the Church – which does not mean that her faithfulness will never be tested. The Temple on Mount Zion was destroyed, rebuilt and destroyed again. St. Peter’s in Rome was plundered several times. The crusaders lost Jerusalem.  What ultimately matters is not the signifier (the cathedral), but the signified (God’s glory) which remains forever fertile and will forever inspire those who long for it." Read the entire article.

In new essay, Benedict XVI addresses sex abuse scandal

In new essay, Benedict XVI addresses sex abuse scandal

Vatican City, Apr 10, 2019
 

In an essay published Thursday at CNA, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI offered his thoughts about the sex abuse crisis facing the Church. Benedict reviewed the sexual revolution of the 1960s, and examined its effects on priestly formation and life, before suggesting the Church's proper response.

“Today, the accusation against God is, above all, about characterizing His Church as entirely bad, and thus dissuading us from it. The idea of a better Church, created by ourselves, is in fact a proposal of the devil, with which he wants to lead us away from the living God, through a deceitful logic by which we are too easily duped,” Benedict wrote in “The Church and the Scandal of sexual abuse,” published April 11.

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How to pregame Lent: Septuagesima, Carnival, and Shrovetide

How to pregame Lent: Septuagesima, Carnival, and Shrovetide

by Mary Rezac for Catholic News Agency
 

Sunday, Feb. 17 is Septuagesima Sunday, followed by Sexagesima, and Quinquagesima Sundays. Sunday kicks off Carnival season, which comes right before Shrovetide, which culminates in Shrove Tuesday - more popularly known as Mardi Gras.

“Septuagesima is kept in the personal ordinariates established by Pope Benedict XVI for former Anglicans, now within the full communion of the Catholic Church,” said Father James Bradley, a priest from the Personal Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham in the United Kingdom.   “Septuagesima is still marked in the older Anglican prayer books, and is part of the Anglican patrimony preserved by Divine Worship: The Missal, used by the ordinariates,” Bradley told CNA.

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Benedict, Viganò, Francis, and McCarrick: Where things stand on nuncio’s allegations

J.D. Flynn, Catholic News Agency
 

In a testimony released Aug. 25, Archbishop Carlo Viganò wrote that in 2006, he sent a memo to his Vatican superiors, which said that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had a history of sexual misconduct with seminarians and priests and that an example should be made of him for the good of the Church.

Viganò claimed that his memo was ignored, and so he sent a second one in 2008. That one, he said, had its desired effect. His testimony said he was told that Pope Benedict XVI imposed “canonical sanctions” on McCarrick in 2009 or 2010, forbidding him from living in a seminary, celebrating sacraments publicly, and from making other kinds of public appearances.

Finally, Viganò alleged that Pope Francis knowingly ignored Benedict’s sanctions on McCarrick, and made the cardinal one of his closest advisors. For that, Viganò said, Pope Francis should resign.

The story is simple, but the the fallout from the Viganò testimony has become quite complex... (keep reading)