Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, issued this statement moments after learning of the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI on February 11, 2013: +++ The Holy Father brought the tender heart of a pastor, the incisive mind of a scholar and the confidence of a soul united with His God in all he did. His resignation is but another sign of his great care for the Church. We are sad that he... Read more
Multiple news sources are now reporting it, saying it will take effect on February 28, with a conclave in March. From BBC: The 85-year-old Pope is to resign at the end of this month in an entirely unexpected development, saying he is too old continue. He became Pope Benedict XVI in 2005 following the John Paul II’s death. Resignations from the papacy are not unknown, but this is the first in the modern era, which has been marked by pontiffs... Read more
As we prepare for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, here’s something from the vault: my homily from Ash Wednesday 2009. GK +++ A true story: a few years ago, I was serving as a Eucharistic Minister on Ash Wednesday, and I stood over there during communion, holding the chalice filled with the Precious Blood. A man came up to me, and I was about to offer him the cup when he waved it away. “I just have a... Read more
As we prepare for Ash Wednesday and the beginning of Lent, here’s something from the vault: my homily from Ash Wednesday 2009. GK +++ A true story: a few years ago, I was serving as a Eucharistic Minister on Ash Wednesday, and I stood over there during communion, holding the chalice filled with the Precious Blood. A man came up to me, and I was about to offer him the cup when he waved it away. “I just have a... Read more
This makes for a striking counterpoint to the recent essay by Fr. George Rutler, defending capital punishment. It comes from Sunday’s Washington Post, and tells how a man who spent decades personally administering the death penalty came to oppose it: Jerry Givens executed 62 people. His routine and conviction never wavered. He’d shave the person’s head, lay his hand on the bald pate and ask for God’s forgiveness for the condemned. Then, he would strap the person into Virginia’s electric... Read more
An interesting detail that has not before been made public, from the Los Angeles Times: Pressed to come up with hundreds of millions of dollars to settle clergy sex abuse lawsuits, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony turned to one group of Catholics whose faith could not be shaken: the dead. Under his leadership in 2007, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles quietly appropriated $115 million from a cemetery maintenance fund and used it to help pay a landmark settlement with molestation victims. The church... Read more
He’s the wizard who came up with all-number dialing and was the pioneer of the touch-tone telephone. He died last month at the ripe age of 94: His research, along with that of his subordinates, quietly yet emphatically defined the experience of using the telephone in the mid-20th century and afterward, from ushering in all-digit dialing to casting the shape of the keypad on touch-tone phones. And that keypad, in turn, would inform the design of a spate of other... Read more
That’s one of the more bizarre quotes by an excommunicated Ohio woman who yesterday attempted ordination as a Catholic priest. Get Religion notes that the Toledo Blade did a better-than-average job of covering the run-up to this event; the paper actually mentioned prominently that Beverly Bingle’s ordination was not recognized by the Catholic Church, and took note of her excommunication. Terry Mattingly runs the full quote from Bingle: “The whole excommunication thing, I don’t accept,” she said. “Neither do the... Read more
Details: Maronite Cardinal Beshara Rai voiced during a historic visit to Syria Saturday solidarity with Syrians and expressed hope for an end to the nearly two-year old conflict. “[I express solidarity] with all the people who are suffering in Syria,” Rai, who headed a sermon at the Maronite Cathedral of St. Anthony in the Bab Touma district of Damascus, told Lebanon’s National News Agency. “We pray each day for the end of war and violence and that a unanimous peace may be achieved through cooperation,” he added. Syrian Minister of... Read more
My own bishop, Nicholas DiMarzio, took note of the anniversary of Roe v. Wade in a recent newspaper column, and he pulled no punches: On Jan. 1, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln signed the Emancipation Proclamation. This Executive Order freed the slaves in the 10 states that were in rebellion. It was not until 1865, with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, that slavery was abolished in the United States. How far we have come as... Read more
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