Appearing as it does on the day the Nuns on the Bus tour kicked off, Melinda Henneberger’s appreciation of Corita Kent (h/t to Fran Rossi Szpylczyn) is well-timed. It’s easy to invoke Corita, as Henneberger does, as a kind of forerunner and patron saint of the sisters who find themselves engaged in conflict with the male hierarchy over Rome’s critique of the LCWR, as she was a Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary when that order went through a... Read more
decorum, n. Dignified propriety of behavior, speech, dress, etc. draconian, adj. rigorous; unusually severe or cruel (from the harsh law codes of Draco) vagina, n. (Anatomy) The passage leading from the opening of the vulva to the cervix of the uterus in female mammals The Toronto Star reports on today’s “Vaginas Take Back the Capitol!” protest in Lansing, Michigan, during which a crowd of some 2,500 gathered to hear portions of the play The Vagina Monologues read aloud by... Read more
After the radio silence of my weekend in the wilds of Southern Indiana, many voices this morning: Former NYT editor Bill Keller, echoing the It’s-time-to-get-outta-Dodge chorus that has included full-page ads from the Freedom From Religion Foundation in the NYT and WaPo, writes today (h/t Deacon Greg Kandra) that Catholics who disagree with Rome should stop dithering and vote with their feet. It’s a sentiment, Keller notes, that appears to be shared by the hierarchy. He cites Bill Donohue... Read more
Blest be the tie that binds Our hearts in Christian love; The fellowship of kindred minds Is like to that above . . . Two stories I was too dumbfounded by to blog about last night, and the tie that (pun intended) binds them. Story 1: Sr Joan Chittister, OSB, is interviewed by CNN’s Christiane Amanpour. The piece, as Diane at Te Deum notes, epitomizes everything that is wrong with the media coverage of the CDF-LCWR interaction, and with... Read more
Ouch. What a morning. So far I have already: Missed a meeting that I have inexplicably had in my calendar for two weeks as being scheduled for this afternoon, when it was this morning at 9:30—in Cincinnati. Been told that my post on St Patrick’s Purgatory represents the worst of the “world-rejecting” worst of Irish Jansenism. (Yup. That’s me. If it’s a choice between the world and a place of pilgrimage, prayer, and penitence, I’m kicking the world to... Read more
Rocco posted a moving story last night on the opening of the Dublin Eucharistic Congress, and how—at the request of the Holy Father—the papal legate Cardinal Mark Ouellet spent last night in St Patrick’s Purgatory, fasting and keeping barefoot vigil in prayer for reconciliation and healing of the grievous wounds dealt by Ireland’s clergy abuse scandals. The ancient pilgrimage site known as St Patrick’s Purgatory is on an island in Lough Derg near Dublin. According to legend, Christ appeared... Read more
Tomorrow, June 13, is the Feast of St Anthony, native son of Lisbon and adopted son of Padua. I’m posting today because I’ll be on the road tomorrow, but the anticipation seems right for a day full of stories about how much our Church could use Anthony’s intercession these days. Almost everyone, Catholic or not, knows to invoke Anthony as the Finder of Lost Things, a reputation he acquired after death. (Spaniards are the exception. Perhaps less willing to trust... Read more
The Hollywood Bowl, 44 years ago tonight. Fireflies (Southern California still had them, then) flickering against the foothills. The summer smell of sage and eucalyptus. From the pit, an organist sounds the first strains of Elgar’s “Pomp and Circumstance.” Two lines of young women, dressed in identical white formal gowns and white elbow-length gloves, carrying bouquets of red roses, make their way down the hillside to the stage. Graduation night for the Pandas of Immaculate Heart High School, class of... Read more
Max Lindenman shared a great piece yesterday categorizing everyone as either an Order Muppet or a Chaos Muppet. Today my Order Muppet manifested itself in a big and ugly way, leading to a reenactment of the parable we used to know as The Pharisee and the Publican. (The first time I heard this story, in second grade, I ran home to my Democrat family wailing at the notion that Jesus preferred Republicans.) This video, God in the Streets of... Read more
For Corpus Christi weekend, a 2012 piece on the history and meaning of the feast. For a beautiful Corpus Christi soundtrack, immerse yourself in Adoration at Ephesus, the latest release from the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, which features several settings of material from Thomas’s Office, along with other Eucharistic hymns ancient and not-so-ancient. This weekend Catholics in the Thursday-averse United States celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, the feast more familiarly... Read more
Egregious Twaddle
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