Three More Years of Synodal Stuff – “Spare us, Lord, from three more years of the Synod on Synodality.” St. Patrick, meet the Synod on Synodality (Catholic Culture)
Progressive Totalitarianism – “… the constraints and limits that informed the democracies of old have largely been replaced by contempt for the enduring verities that once guided the exercise of human freedom.” “Progressive Democracy” and the Totalitarian Temptation (Encounter Books)
Rupnik Abuse Allegations – “The retired bishop of the Diocese of Koper, where Father Rupnik was incardinated in August 2023, told OSV News that the priest ‘continues his work all over the world.’” 500 Days after statute of limitations is lifted in Rupnik case, priest ‘does his work’, travels the world
Loss of Spiritual Values – “Then the entire twentieth century, so productive technically but so hasty psychologically, worked in various ways toward the lowering of culture.” The depletion of culture (The New Criterion)
The Papabili – “When the Pope—any Pope—goes into the hospital, the reaction around Rome is unseemly yet predictable. The rumor mill begins to churn overtime. False reports abound. And thoughts turn toward the conclave.” What to do when the conclave comes (Catholic Culture)
John Paul II’s New Feminism – “The Catechism … teaches that marriage is a covenant, a partnership, an intimate communion of equals.” John Paul II, the Feminist Pope (Wall Street Journal)
The Tragic Case of Francis Collins – “The sad truth is that it’s precisely because of Collins’ embrace of the secularist agenda that he rose to the top.” Stockholm Syndrome Christian: The tragedy of Francis Collins (The Christian Post)
The Full Francis Story? – “… over the past decade, Francis’s papacy has been much more scandal-ridden than non-specialists might assume,” After Francis: What’s Next in the Vatican? (Anxious Bench – Patheos)
Restorative Reproductive Medicine – “Advances in restorative reproductive medicine offer an incredible opportunity to identify, diagnose, and treat painful reproductive health conditions in men and women, including those that are the driving cause of infertility.” Treating Infertility: The New Frontier of Reproductive Medicine (Ethics & Public Policy Center)
Legacy of Irish Immigrants – “When she arrived in New York in 1892, the ‘new’ parade route had just been established—a march up Fifth Avenue, right past St. Patrick’s ‘New’ Cathedral, where today’s parade will proudly follow. Her name was Annie Moore.” The St. Patrick’s Day Parade, Annie Moore, and the Legacy of Faith (Words & Pictures by Jeffrey Bruno – Substack)
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Re #7 – The Tragic Case of Francis Collins
A sobering essay.
More on “Stockholm Syndrome Christianity”, please.
I’ve known some members of Dr. Collins family & I think the article might not take into consideration the family & culture he was raised in.
Our Christian journeys begins at different points. As devout Catholics, most of us here have had the advantage of being taught to value human life at every stage in gestation. That wasn’t a thing in some Protestant churches until fairly recently.
@ Three More Years of Synodal Stuff
Surely, the elusive and illusive DEFINITION of synodal is this: Replacement of the “hierarchical communion” articulated in Lumen Gentium (Chapter 3, with the clarifying Explanatory Note) with a layer cake of bottom-up (probably literally, too) sewing circles—at the diocesan level, the national level, the continental level, and finally in an Assembly in 2028.
About the management of such a community-based (or Lutheran-like or Anglican-like) remodel of the EUCHARISTIC Catholic Church of the Apostolic Succession (clearly rooted in Matthew 28:19, and in Pentecost Acts 2:1-31, etc.)—“listening” to Benedict XVI we hear, instead, that we are not to “turn back”, but rather “to return to the authentic texts of the original Vatican II:”
“But the Church of Christ is not a party, not an association, not a club. Not setting the clock back, but setting in right. Her deep and permanent structure is not democratic but sacramental, consequently hierarchical [….] Real reform is to strive to let what is ours disappear as much as possible so what belongs to Christ may become more visible…what the Church needs in order to respond to the needs of man in every age is holiness, not management” (The Ratzinger Report, 1985, pp. 49, 53).
Although, yes, better management would not hurt!
QUESTION: The replacement of Synods (of Bishops) with mongrel-democratic Synodality, and then in 2028 with a roundtable Assembly (rolling on and on ?)—does this mean that the process IS management and IS holiness, both?
And, below the radar, what about the post-synodal Study Group #9 possibly hairsplitting its way over how to elevate today’s theologians above (rather than within) the Church’s magisterium?—that is, as one of the ten “hot-button” study groups scheduled to report in June 2025, this one is assigned to develop “theological criteria [?] and synodal methodologies [?] for shared discernment [?] of controversial doctrinal [?], pastoral [?], and ethical [?] issues.”
No note was made that Alexandr Solzhenitsyn authored New Criterion’s article, “The Depletion of Culture.” This article is actually a (previously unpublished) speech he delivered in 1997.
Solzhenitsyn claimed: “Well, for more than a century already, the civilized world has been undergoing a process–unnoticed at first and for some time thereafter–of a loss of spiritual concentration and loftiness, a process of diffusion and perhaps even of irreplaceable loss of spiritual values.”
He attributes various causes to degradation of spiritual values:
1) Swift and broad growth of material well-being (due to advanced in technology);
2) Utilitarian requirement stemming from either/both socialist-communist ‘compulsion’ and/or market principles;
3) “Massification” of culture–blanket literacy (should he have called it illiteracy?), education and ‘knowledgeableness’. (why this word rather than ‘knowledge’?? Is he pointing to the difference between knowing trivial ‘pop culture’ facts vss. traditional knowledge?
4) Increasing secularization and ANTHROPOCENTRISM.
Little gems and grand ideas sparkle in this essay. The tale told rings sadly true. The hope held is that all the “shapes that flit across our television screens–all these shall pass away as if they never were, forgotten dust lost to History.”
@ Progressive Totalitarianism
Daniel J. Mahoney professor emeritus at Assumption University specialization is political science and Augustine. He makes this evaluation on America’s current political warfare temporarily won by conservatives [a myriad descriptive term] against radical progressivists.
“The endless self-radicalization of democracy predicted by Alexis de Tocqueville nearly two hundred years ago has come to pass with unerring and unnerving accuracy”. De Tocqueville, was foremost [more than Locke] in favor of the maintenance of a democracy with checks and balances. Currently we’re in the midst of a paradigmatic political transformation toward a more Constitutional oriented government. Standing ‘in the way’ with multiple injunctions against the federal government are non elected, politically appointed federal judges. Is it fair, another liberal attempt at disruption of true democracy?
From the shooting from the hip reaction of many conservatives it’s widely assumed nothing but radical progressivism. On further study and reflection it becomes far more complex and important for the future of a democratic republic. These independent justices provide what de Tocqueville envisioned as a necessity to retain a democratic balance.
A formidable duly elected administration intent on defending the Constitution can in the aura of popular victory extend itself beyond the purview of an elected, democratic government. It can become the very totalitarian entity it claims to oppose. Even a seemingly absurd demand to turn back flights filled with illegals assumed criminals back to San Salvador can have merit. The federal judge in effect asks, are the subjects all criminals? It would seem that’s an easy response, although it’s not. For justice to be served each person judged criminal must be proved. That’s how a democracy works in order to remain a democracy.
Yes, it’s El Salvador not San Salvador.
@ Progressive Totalitarianism
I’ve counted them: the teacher who laughs with children at their God and their cradle, is already ours. Jurors who acquit criminals right and left, are ours. The prosecutor who trembles in court for fear of being insufficiently liberal is ours. And they don’t know it themselves! (Precis Dostoevsky Demons).
Assumption’s Prof emeritus Daniel Mahoney broadsides progressivism’s utopian “Second Reality” that conflicts with everything that comprises human nature and moral sanity. Dostoevsky saw it in archaic imperial Russia. Isn’t that reality already ours?
Leaping out of, though not too far from Mahoney’s powerful indictment, let’s turn to what has become the new political psychology, Alternate Realities. Definition? Take the President of the American Federation of Teachers Randi Weingarten, who is presently making fervid public statements before cameras and the world to know of her strong, almost reckless advocacy for keeping public schools open during the Covid Crisis. That. When the entire Nation watched her do the exact opposite as fervid then as she is now. A classical bold faced fib?
Or is it a progressive mindset [although not entirely limited to progressives even if predominantly] a form of moral schizophrenia? The definition of Alternate Reality Syndrome, the shifting from one reality to another when the situation requires it. Not for sake of classical terms like veracity, rather for the advancement of a sacred ideology that of itself must have no fetters. Similar to stealth advancement of moral ideology different in kind from revelation.