Theological Mysteries – “This year is special for Christians because all the Christian calendars—Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant—have us celebrating Easter on April 20.” Imagining the Divine Drama this Holy Week
Immortality and Immorality – “Apologist Jimmy Akin addresses the question of how living indefinitely would be viewed within Catholic theology.” “Is It Wrong to Live Forever?” (Catholic Answers)
Actual Spiritual Journeys – “Pilgrimages involve traveling to a holy site, not as a vacation but as a mission of “encountering God in a deeper way.” The main goal is transformation, both on the path to the site and at the destination itself … ” FOCUS: 4 reasons to go on a pilgrimage (CatholicVote)
As a Woman – “A new lesson plan teaching secondary school students that Joan of Arc was “non-binary” has sparked a strong backlash from academics and women’s rights advocates. ” Joan of Arc Was ‘Non-Binary,’ School Textbook Claims (The European Conservative)
Truth and Community – “In an age when so much has been lost—common culture, common purpose, and even common sense—it is no small thing to step into a room where the soul can breathe.” Resisting the Collapse, One Room at a Time (Homefront Crusade)
The Old Testament Conundrum – “In Marcion’s time, the second century, there were still more Jews than Christians spread through the Roman empire. These people laid prior claim to the Hebrew Bible, and denied what the Christians made of it.” The Biggest Christian Thinker You Never Heard About: Marcion, Whose Heresy Is Coming to Your Church Soon (The Stream)
Poetry Matters – His latest work represents four decades of creative and critical acumen. Dana Gioia, Enchanter-Poet (Modern Age)
Restricting Religious Practice – “Clerics in China say new restrictions on religious practice are about cutting Chinese Catholics off from the outside world.” China’s new religion laws a ‘pretext’ for arrests, clerics say (The Pillar)
Recent Transgender Headlines – “Despite high-profile dissidents like J.K. Rowling wielding their cultural influence in defense of sanity, scarcely a week goes by without some eye-popping headline that should remind everybody that the fundamental premises of the transgender movement have logical, predictable, and indeed predicted consequences.” What Will It Take for Europeans To Reject Transgender Ideology? (The European Conservative)
(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)
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@ Restricting Religious Practice
We read: “The regulations, billed as 38 ‘Detailed Rules,’ were carried on the website of the Catholic Diocese of Shanghai….”.
For historical perspective, a good time to recall “a series of radio lectures presented under the auspices of the Shanghai Catholic Radio League” beginning in 1939—still ten years before Chairman Mao and his future clones consolidated power over China.
In the first series of lectures, four Jesuit priests offered their first twenty commentaries. In “The Triumph of Christianity” Rev. John K. Lipman, S.J. included this remark about “religion” in China (and other trends):
“Today the forces at work against Christianity are no less powerful than in past centuries. Communism, though pictured as mainly of an economic and social nature, is in the mind and action of its leaders primarily religious [!], or rather, anti-religious. Their business is, like Nero’s, to destroy the Christian name and the spirit of Christ in society. They openly glory in and deify their atheism. Equally as hostile to Christianity are those who would replace the nineteen century old Church of Christ with the worship of nature, and of pagan deities” (from “The Catholic Philosophy of Life,” Tou-se-wei Press, Shanghai, 1939).