Vatican: Rupnik case is complicated – “Seven months after the Vatican reversed its previous course and opened a canonical inquiry into a famed Slovenian priest and artist, a high-ranking official has said the case, while delicate, is in advanced stages.” Rupnik case complex, but in ‘advanced stage,’ Vatican official says (Crux)
Puzzling Pontifications – “Despite repeated media attempts to define Pope Francis, he remains difficult to label 11 years into his pontificate.” Off-color LGBTQ remarks deepen mystery of a pontiff who can’t be pinned down (Religion News Service)
Sainthood for WI visionary? – “When the U.S. bishops gather for their plenary assembly this month, they will vote on the canonization cause of Servant of God Adele Brise, an illiterate religious sister who received apparitions of Mary in Wisconsin nearly 200 years ago.” US bishops to consider sainthood cause of Wisconsin Marian visionary (The Pillar)
Lessons about Writing – “Algorithms have us addicted to distraction, Hollywood’s out of creative ideas, and people don’t read hard books like they used to.” David Perell status (X)
Fear and Trembling – “What is at stake in our ability to see the threat plainly? Nothing less than the preservation of our way of life.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali: We Have Been Subverted (The Free Press)
Progress Pride Flag – “An Evangelical Christian lifeguard is suing the Los Angeles County Fire Department, claiming religious discrimination after he was allegedly punished for refusing to fly an LGBT pride flag at his beachside lifeguard facility last summer.” Christian lifeguard sues LA County Fire Department over LGBT pride flag mandate (The Christian Post)
Corpus Christi Processions – “As images and videos of processions filled social media feeds, that evolved into one of last weeks’ Catholic Twitter discussions, but of course it’s not a new concern, and it’s not even unique to our post Vatican II – era.” With Christ abiding in us (Charlotte was Both)
Lost New York – “From colossal buildings to works of art—the New-York Historical Society remembers the city’s lost icons.” New York’s Lost Architectural History Is Brought Back to Life in a Museum Show (artnet)
New Millennial Milestone – “Millennials are getting married later, if at all. They’re having kids later, if at all. And forget owning a sprawling suburban home.” Forget marriage and kids: Millennials explain the joy and sacrifice of living alone (Business Insider)
Pivotal Ventures Foundation – “The billionaire philanthropist pledges $200 million to ‘reproductive freedom,’ among other things.” Melinda Gates Now Biggest Catholic Donor to Pro-Abortion Causes in the World (National Catholic Register)
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In my college days, I had an record album of Sgt Peppers Lonely Heart Club Band. On the jacket cover was a picture of the Beatles and tens of various characters from the present and past surrounding them. I never cared enough to look into whether there was any significance to who was included in the picture.
But this album cover made me think that we need a similar visual depiction of the Bergoglian Papacy. It would include the Pope surrounded by his favorites: Biden, Pelosi, McElroy,McCarrick, Cupich, Rusnik, Jean Grammick, Tucho, Stowe, Tobin, James Martin and as many of the outliers anyone can think of to add to the montage. No books need to be written about this papacy; enough ink was been wasted already. All that’s needed is a visual depiction of the villains he’s surrounded himself with over these 10+ years. (Please add the names you also would lìke to see there.)
Can’t forget his weepy idolizing regard for the anti-Capitalist Karl Marx, who got his life long servant pregnant and beat her until she got an abortion. He never paid her a cent in wages. And Che Guevara, who made his victims dig their own graves. Saints among the enemies of capitalist greed!
There’s another and different list of names.
Consider Cardinal Sarah and Africa: https://catholicvote.org/cardinal-sarah-calls-african-catholic-scholars-to-take-over-after-western-ideological-contamination/
Re: Rupnik ‘Advanced Stage.’
If Rupnik’s case is “complex” — with thirty or so innocent nuns ravaged and demeaned in the name of God — then nothing in the world can or will ever be simple again.
I am deeply and profoundly revolted by this Dark Vatican that Bergoglio has wrought.
@ New Millennial Milestone
Living alone and liking it! In the most extreme examples, the “stylites” of old, the high priced single apartments of today were replaced by a small pad atop a a really high stone column. The occupants stayed for years, often preaching publicly rather than silently attending to techy cell phones.
And, then, without the continuity and fidelity of families, there’s the parallel and possibly related demise of civilization:
“Late marriages and small families became the rule, and men satisfied their sexual instincts by homosexuality or by relations with slaves and prostitutes. This aversion to marriage and the deliberate restriction of the family by the practice of infanticide and abortion was undoubtedly the main cause of the decline of ancient Greece, as Polybius pointed out in the second century B.C. And the same factors were equally powerful in the society of the Empire. . . .” (Christopher Dawson, “The Patriarchal Family in History,” The Dynamics of World History, 1962).
@ Puzzling Pontifications
Francis isn’t going to change church doctrine, everyone is invited to the table, but the rules stay the same (Claire Giangravé). Puzzling if we overlook what occurred during this pontificate regarding structural change, The John Paul II Institute on Marriage and the Family, the Pontifical Academy for Life, to cut to the quick the recent approval of a homosexual priesthood implied in a written instruction to a homosexual identified candidate.
Changes since Benedict and John Paul are extensive and radical. A nonstrategic papacy could not have achieved this by accident. Complexity understood as puzzling is perceived when seeking to offer a benevolent explanation, rather than seeking a purely objective assessment of the effects of Francis’ pontificate.
Francis is no more puzzling to understand than any other secular narcissist. Thomas Sowell is noted for delving deep into the political elitist and revolutionary personality which he describes as the self-anointed. And from what more commanding position of egocentric temptation can there be than the Chair of Peter. There is no question posed to him where he doesn’t fail to defy received Catholic truth and replace it with his own concepts of religious history, the human condition, and personal admonitions, that once acted upon, would, over time, lead to the eventual perfection of the human condition. The notion of the permanent imperfectability of the human condition, even the truthful observation of Our Lord that poverty will always exist, is naturally dismissible to anyone who aspires to identify with the inevitable tides of history. The failures of revolutionary history fail to serve as a rebuke to minds occupied with vanity. Even liturgical discipline and humility can become expendable.
Anyone can disagree with my opinion here, but it is pretty hard to disagree that the behavior of Francis has altered global perception of Catholicism in general to that of a faith and institution with no special divinely endowed claims to give witness to the truth of what God desires from us and how we should order our lives together. Francis has told the world, we really do just make things up as we go along, so don’t take us seriously. We have no real authority to tell you that life is sacred with inviolable status while we host population planning events. So go ahead and exterminate the inconvenient among you.
“And from what more commanding position of egocentric temptation can there be than the Chair of Peter”. Yes, on the mark. He’s leaving his personal imprint on the Church in a way that diminishes Christ. You’re last paragraph says it well.
Well said, Edward.
Spot-on, Edward J.!
You’ve described the car wreck that is Bergoglio perfectly!
@ Vatican: Rupnik Case is complicated
Elise Ann Allen, like her husband, is an honest broker in the wilderness of Leftist media ideology. Complicated it is, walking a tightrope above public perception, rights of the alleged victims, absence of canon law on abuses related to ‘spiritual mysticism’. She quotes Msgr Kennedy, secretary for the disciplinary body of the DDF that despite intricate, delicate issues the process of investigation is in its ‘advanced stages’.
Advanced stages commonly reference a disease. Although it’s understandable the DDF presumably wants to get it right. Does this case of outrageous abuse of a multitude of victims require being subject to a canon law that doesn’t exist? That is the Shakespearean question as to whether a case is to be or not to be. One might reasonably consider a simple case of abuse of adults, which is perfectly covered by canon law. Or has prefect Cardinal Fernández thrown his sabot into the wheels of justice?
@ New Millennial Milestone
Refusing to become a Business Insider I gleaned what the article said by a jetlike scan. Jess Munday, the first young woman in her small apartment and inevitable dog is happy [at least assumed] being with herself free of responsibility to a man and children, free to communicate within her world of virtual reality.
What the article doesn’t cover, perhaps I’m wrong since my speed scan ability is limited is that people, especially young women make a living via contacts on the internet in virtual reality relationships involving financial gifts. A great moral problem for many who began this lifestyle during the pandemic lockdown. The other is persons who have more legitimate employment who work at home, another big trend. Men of course are doing the same, men and women living together in ‘no strings attached’ relationships. No real responsibility to each other except the convenience of another body to talk and relate to.
We need to coin a new categorical word called impersonalism. Meaning self explained. Where did it begin if not with the distancing from religious values centered in a moral God, and the disintegration of family life. For multiple reasons, both father and mother working away from home, irreligious, perhaps vacations together with children acquiring a sense of independence and lack of commitment to others, except for convenience. It’s not complex. Leave God and we leave behind the rationale for commitment to anything but ourselves, which devolves into becoming increasingly impersonal in an electronic world of virtual reality. Although the human soul is divinely engineered for flesh on flesh togetherness, real people engaging with real people the loss of which is a slow deadening of the soul, despair, and finally suicide. Leaving God behind we’ve left our primary raison d’etre.
The only good news here is that the Marko Rupnik case is still active and is moving along. Having read the article twice, I am still unsure why the case is so “delicate” but perhaps that is Vatican-speak that I don’t understand. I certainly hope that doesn’t indicate a behind-the-scenes effort to let Rupnik off the hook or mitigate his situation in some way.
Also, it’s unclear why Elise Ann Allen didn’t mention the name of the “key Rupnik ally” who met with Pope Francis and who had described the abuse charges as a form of “lynching.” But it was, of course, Maria Campatelli, the director of the Centro Aletti in Rome, which made the news that it had been investigated and had received a “clean bill of health” even more troubling to me.