Quiet Americans
With the departure of Archbishop Peter Wells, an official of the Secretariat of State who has been appointed the nuncio to South Africa, there is no obvious candidate to become the most important American in the Vatican, wrote John Allen at Cruxnow.com. He listed several possible candidates before ruling them out one by one. “Meaning no disrespect, however, no one could confuse those posts with ones where real Vatican policy is set or political muscle is wielded,” Allen wrote. He continued: “In other words, we may be in a sobering moment for US Catholics, in which the most honest answer to who’s the most important American in the Vatican simply is, ‘Nobody’.” Allen said the Pope was not suspicious about America, just not especially fond of it either. “It’s not that he doesn’t like us – we’re just not what he’s thinking about when he gets out of bed in the morning.”
Bishops change tack
John Gehring at commonwealmagazine.org lamented a “shift in priorities” for US bishops. He wrote: “Over the past decade, a new generation of conservatives replaced longtime conference staff forged in the heady afterglow of the Second Vatican Council and inspired by the late Cardinal Joseph Bernardin’s ‘consistent ethic of life’ framework. As these younger staffers began to fill leadership positions, the prioritisation of issues at the conference has tacked in a different direction.” That direction, Gehring said, diverged from Pope Francis’s priorities.
Heavenly Confession
A teenager from Madrid who made her Confession to the Pope told Zenit that Francis “speaks to you like a father, as if he knows you thoroughly”. During Confession, she said she “heard nothing but his voice. I felt at ease, in peace and … after a while, calm. I felt as if I were in heaven, safe, protected, happy and as if nothing bad could happen to me. “I could tell that it was my heavenly Father that was speaking to me through a person, as he spoke with concern about my problems, and looked for ways to solve them, giving me advice.”
Imitating Ikea
The Church can take lessons from the Swedish store Ikea, according to Fr Michael Rossmann SJ at The Jesuit Post. For instance, “Own – and learn from – mistakes”. Ikea celebrates its blunders because it has learned from them, Rossmann wrote. He quoted an Ikea manager saying: “We are world champions in making mistakes. But we’re really good at correcting them.” Rossmann added: “Some might think that Catholic leaders are also ‘world champions in making mistakes’. Fewer, however, would say, ‘We’re really good at correcting them.’ It happens … but sometimes our learning can be glacially slow.”
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ Lady Gaga has surprised her followers with a different type of post on Instagram. The pop singer, famous for her edgy dress sense and hits such as Poker Face, praised a priest’s “beautiful homily” in a post that received 186,000 likes. Lady Gaga, otherwise known as Stefani Joanne Angelina Germanotta and raised a Catholic in New York, wrote: “Thank you Father Duffell for a beautiful homily as always and lunch at my pop’s restaurant. I was so moved today when you said: ‘The Eucharist is not a prize for the perfect but the food that God gives us.’ ”
✣ An American man is marking the Year of Mercy by running across the US. Dylan Cuddy is running 15 to 20 miles a day, passing through the Holy Doors of Mercy in basilicas and cathedrals in every state he passes through. “I started running two years ago, right after I turned my life back over to God,” he said, after five states and 700 miles. “I wanted to be healthy. I wanted to be happy. I wanted to be beautiful. I just wanted to be me. You know, created in the image and likeness of God.”
✣ The first Muslim winner of the Miss USA beauty contest has converted to Catholicism. Rimah Fakih, who won the award in 2010, has converted ahead of marrying her fiancé, a Maronite Catholic.
✣ The week in quotations
The streets are as though everyone has died
Aleppo friar Fr Ibrahim Alsabagh
Aid to the Church in Need interview
When our faith reaches the edge, there is always an intervention of God
Archbishop Mirkis of Kirkuk, Iraq
Catholic News Service
I dream of a Europe where being a migrant is not a crime
Pope Francis
Speech accepting the Charlemagne Prize
By the third day we had run out of food, water and fuel
Bishop Nguyen on his boat journey to Australia
Interview with Australian bishops’ conference
✣ Statistic of the week
30,000
People at March for Life in Rome on Sunday
Source: March organisers