Beyoncé’s psalm
Sarah Koops Vanderveen at Aleteia hailed Beyoncé’s new album Lemonade as a “modern woman’s psalm”.
Vanderveen said that it was a recorded conversation between Bono, of U2, and the Christian scholar Eugene Peterson that helped her realise what she had found in Beyoncé’s music, “and why it felt so deeply true”. Beyoncé’s album, she wrote, “is a kind of modern woman’s psalm.
“According to Peterson, the biblical psalmists created expressions not only of joy and praise, but also of anger and violence and ‘the hurt and disappointment and difficulty of being human”. That mixture of positive and negative emotion is also evident in Lemonade.
“The only way we can approach God is if we’re honest, through metaphor and through symbol,” Bono says in the exchange with Peterson. “So art becomes essential, not decorative.”
Curialists are thriving
John Allen wondered at Crux why Pope Francis had changed so few department heads in the Curia.
Despite “the surface impression of business as usual, it’s hard to escape the impression that something important nonetheless has shifted,” he wrote. “Arguably, what’s critical is not how thoroughly Francis has shuffled the deck, but rather who has the Pope’s ear and who’s been emboldened on his watch.” He cites four cases where Francis has appointed a moderate: Cardinal Stella at the Congregation for Clergy, Cardinal Versaldi at Catholic Education, Cardinal Mamberti at Apostolic Signatura and Cardinal Baldisseri at the synod of bishops.
In 2013, Allen recalled, “the Pontiff expressed his admiration for ‘old-time Curialists’, describing them as ‘exemplary persons’ who ‘work with competence, with precision, self-sacrifice, carrying out their daily work with care. We need them today!’’’
Loving the poor
Mark Gordon, writing at the Dorothy Option on Patheos, mentioned a friend “who frequently corners me after Mass to ask questions about things she finds baffling about Scripture or Catholic teaching”. Recently she asked him, “Does God love the poor more than he loves the rich?”
Gordon cited Scripture texts, Church Fathers and Popes apparently supporting this view, then said: “You might be surprised that the answer I gave was a resounding ‘NO!’ God loves Bill Gates or Donald Trump every bit as much as he loves you or me or the lowliest beggar in the streets of Calcutta.
“The Church’s ‘preferential option for the poor’ isn’t about God loving this individual person over that one. No, the option for the poor is about providing a counterweight to the inordinate prestige and privilege our fallen world confers on the wealthy and powerful. It is a call to justice.”
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ Guitarist The Edge (David Evans) of the band U2 became the first rock star to play in the Sistine Chapel on Saturday. “Being Irish, you learn very early that if you want to be asked to come back it’s very important to thank the local parish priest for the loan of the hall,” he said – before thanking Pope Francis and other Vatican officials “for allowing us to use the most beautiful parish hall in the world”.
✣ A zucchetto once owned by Pope Francis was sold on the Catawiki auction website for £12,593. Some of the proceeds will go to Save the Child’s Heart, an Israeli-based charity helping children with heart problems in the developing world. The zucchetto sold for half the expected price, perhaps reflecting the increasing number of papal white caps formerly owned by Pope Francis in circulation.
✣ A replica of Noah’s Ark is about to set sail from Dordrecht, south of Amsterdam, to Fortaleza, Brazil. The ship, which is 410ft long and cost £3.5 million, is intended to reach Brazil by August 5 for the start of the Olympic Games, and then Rio de Janeiro by September 7 for the Paralympic Games. But crowdfunding for the Atlantic crossing, which will cost £1.33 million, has so far raised only £1,500.
✣ The week in quotations
Our ancestors lived there for thousands of years, so we have to retake our homes
Assyrian militia fighter John Behnam
CNS
Dorothy Day taught me more than all the theologians
Fr Daniel Berrigan
The Nation
Abortion … leads to a dreadful wound in the mother and the destruction of innocent human life
Cardinal Vincent Nichols
Homily at Ealing Abbey
We cannot go around with an armed escort. That is no way to live
Cardinal John Onaiyekan
Vatican Radio
✣ Statistic of the week
17
Financial transactions passed on to the Vatican for prosecution
Source: FIA report