What happened?
A woman was killed and at least 19 people injured when a car rammed into counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on Saturday. The original “Unite the Right” march was provoked by the city’s plan to remove a statue of a Confederate general. Armed brawls broke out between the two groups.
President Donald Trump said: “We condemn in the strongest possible terms this egregious display of hatred, bigotry and violence on many sides.”
What the media are saying
Donald Trump’s refusal to specifically denounce white nationalists drew criticism from both the liberal and conservative press. National Review described his statement as “half-hearted”. Trump criticised Hillary Clinton for failing to name Islamist terror as a threat to national security, the magazine noted; now it is he who is “vague and equivocal”. It is awkward, the editorial said, “because the cracked and malevolent young men raging about ‘white genocide’ are his people, whether he wants them or not”. His refusal to denounce them is seen as a “tacit indulgence, as the closest thing to a public embrace that realpolitik will allow”.
The TV comic John Oliver said: “There aren’t many instances in modern American politics where you think ‘That guy really should have mentioned the Nazis’, but this is one of them.”
What the bishops are saying
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the US bishops’ conference, called the events “abhorrent acts of hatred” and an “attack on the unity of our nation”.
The next day in a joint statement with Bishop Frank Dewane of Venice, he said: “We stand against the evil of racism, white supremacy and neo-Nazism.”
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia called racism the “poison of the soul”. He said it was the United States’ “original sin” which “never fully healed”, adding: “Blending it with the Nazi salute … compounds the obscenity.” Bishop Francis DiLorenzo of Richmond, where Charlottesville is located, said: “I earnestly pray for peace. I pray that those men and women on both sides can talk and seek solutions to their differences respectfully.”
✣Cardinal Burke: German prelate is spreading error
What happened?
Cardinal Raymond Burke has singled out Cardinal Reinhard Marx, president of the German Bishops’ Conference, as contributing to “confusion and error” in the Church. In a talk in Kentucky, he cited an interview in which Cardinal Marx, rather than speaking out on same-sex marriage, said he regretted the Church had not been a “pioneer” in gay rights.
Why was it under-reported?
Two years ago one cardinal criticising another would have been big news. Now such open disagreements are commonplace. Cardinal Burke’s remarks are surprising nonetheless. He said that modern times “realistically seem to be apocalyptic”.
As a sign of this, the cardinal said, “the confusion and error which has led human culture in the way of death and destruction has also entered the Church”. Cardinal Marx’s remarks, he said, were an example of the Church losing “clarity and courage” in proclaiming her teaching.
What will happen next?
On the subject of ministering to gay people, Church leaders are taking different approaches. Some, such as Cardinal Joseph Tobin of Newark, who welcomed an LGBT pilgrimage to his cathedral, emphasise that gay people are sinners like everyone else. His spokesman, defending the event, cited Francis, saying: “We have to meet people and minister to them where they are.” Others see this as an evasion of the duty to explain Church teaching clearly. That disagreement, which is even dividing the College of Cardinals, will not be resolved soon.
✣The week ahead
On Monday a swathe of the United States will witness an eclipse of the sun for the first time in 99 years. In parts of Britain a partial eclipse will be visible in the evening. Brother Guy Consolmagno, director of the Vatican Observatory, said the event was one that “calls us out of our everyday life”, a reminder that the “world is bigger than the latest crisis in Washington”.
Britain’s largest summer festival for young Catholics starts on Thursday. Inheritance, organised by Youth 2000, is a five-day camping event at Walsingham for under-35s. A marquee (right) will host talks, entertainment and prayer events.
On Sunday pilgrims will visit the grave of St John Kemble in Welsh Newton, Herefordshire. St John was hanged at the age of 80 after serving for decades as an itinerant priest along the Welsh border. He was a victim of the anti-Catholic furore following the fake Titus Oates plot in 1678. The pilgrimage will begin with a 9.15am Mass at St Mary’s Church, Monmouth.
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