Reaching jaded hearts
At the Catholic Voices site (cvcomment.org) Christopher White argued that, far from being “soft” on pro-life issues, Francis should be seen as one of the great pro-life popes. He wrote: “Francis is reframing the way much of the world has come to view the issue of abortion.
“For years, the language in which those inside and outside of the Catholic Church have talked about abortion has been centred around the debate over a woman’s right to choose. Such rhetoric too often pits the woman against the child she is carrying to term. Francis is inviting the Church and the world to act in a way that recognises the intrinsic dignity of both parties.”
Francis’s approach allows him to reach a new audience, White said, “and enables us to reach even the most jaded hearts in the most unlikely of places. His pro-life critics should be the first to recognise this and to heed his example.”
Lax justice for the laity
At Crux, John Allen asked why the Vatican has been so slow to deal with charges of sexual and other forms of abuse against the founder of Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, a lay movement in Peru. Concerns were first raised in 2011, but the Vatican’s Congregation for Religious has only just appointed a delegate to oversee a process of reform, “and it still has not imposed any ecclesiastical punishment on the founder, Luis Fernando Figari”.
Although the Church has the authority “to dispense with the usual statute of limitations in Church law to prosecute sexual abuse cases”, he wrote, this only applies to clergy – and “Figari is a layman rather than a priest”. “In effect, what Catholicism seems to have evolved is a sort of two-track system of justice: swift and relatively certain punishment for most priests who commit abuse, and slower and more muddled consequences for everyone else,” he wrote.
Shoulder-shruggers
In the Big Issue, Brendan O’Neill recalled the nuns of his schooldays, and contrasted them with the “nones”, those with no religious belief, who now outnumber believers in Britain. “I find myself feeling almost nostalgic for the nuns I did so much to torment,” he wrote. Or at least for a time when people had deep beliefs, and were willing to organise their lives around them. What worries me about today’s none phenomenon is that it speaks not to a radical revolt against God, but to a decline in strong convictions of any sort; to a discomfort with passion and vigour in moral matters and a preference for shrugging one’s shoulders over the massive moral questions facing mankind.”
Even as an atheist, he said, “I’d feel more comfortable hanging out with nuns, whose passions would at least clash with mine and stir up debate, than with nones.”
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ An American Catholic who assaulted a street preacher when drunk has been ordered to attend a Baptist church. Instead of sending Jake Strotman to prison , Judge William Mallory sentenced him to attend Baptist services for 12 consecutive Sundays. “I’m going to listen with both my ears and keep my mouth shut,” Strotman told the Cincinnati Enquirer.
✣ An Indian bishop has donated a kidney to save the life of a poor Hindu man. Bishop Mar Jacob Muricken of the Syro-Malabar Eastern Church is an auxiliary in the Palai diocese, in the southern state of Kerala. E Sooraj, a 30-year-old lower-caste Hindu man, was diagnosed with kidney failure two years ago and has been on dialysis ever since, and struggling to support his wife and his mother.
✣ Manchester United manager José Mourinho will be the voice of Pope Francis in a new animated film. Fe is being made to mark the 100th anniversary of the apparitions of the Virgin Mary to three children in Fatima. The Vatican has approved the choice of Mourinho to voice the Pope in Portuguese, English, Spanish and Italian. “Every day I pray,” the manager said last year. “But … I never go to the church to speak with Him about football. Never!”
✣ The week in quotations
The Greeks and the Romans attributed [their decline] to falling birthrates
Former Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks
Daily Telegraph interview
God’s mercy is divinising. It’s not just patting us on the head
Bishop Robert Barron
Talk given to priests in Rome
A priest always complaining about his troubles is a counter-sign
Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Mass for priests and seminarians in Rome
Meekness is a way of being that draws us close to Jesus
Pope Francis
Morning Mass homily
✣ Statistic of the week
55
Number of years the Pan-Orthodox Council has been in preparation