Ecumenical angst
Pope Francis’s ecumenical efforts caused considerable discussion. Fr Dwight Longenecker welcomed his apology to Protestants, but said he was “waiting to hear the same from the other side”. On his Standing On My Head blog he wrote: “I was living in England when Pope St John Paul II issued the apologies during the Jubilee Year. I thought how marvellous it would have been if the Queen, as head of the Church of England along with the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, were to set up a similar service of repentance and apology in Westminster Abbey and return the courtesy. It didn’t happen. Perhaps it happened when Benedict XVI visited England and I missed it.” Meanwhile, Rod Dreher at the American Conservative (theamericanconservative.com) said the Pope’s decision to commemorate the Reformation with a visit to Sweden was “insane – just as insane as if Lutheran leaders showed up at a worship service to ‘commemorate’ the Counter Reformation”. Dreher, who was raised a Methodist but eventually converted to Orthodoxy, via Catholicism, says: “I don’t begrudge Protestants celebrating the Reformation at all, though I think it was a terrible tragedy (as was the Great Schism separating the Roman and the Eastern churches). It is appropriate for Protestants to celebrate throwing off the yoke of Rome. But why on earth would a pope join in an official event marking that celebration?” But John Allen at Crux said Pope Francis was “no ecumenical revolutionary” and was only following the path set out by popes for the past 50 years – “including figures whose own narratives would tell you they were iron-willed (St John Paul II) or arch-conservative (Pope Benedict XVI).”
Our Shia link
The split between the two main factions of Islam, Shia and Sunni, can be compared to the division between Catholicism and Protestantism, according to Erasmus, the Economist’s religion blog. The article said: “Both Shia Muslims and Catholics have a respect for clerical authority and for theological tradition as it has evolved over time; that is in contrast with the stress put by many Sunnis, and Protestants, on going back to the original divine revelation and ignoring whatever came later.” Some of the similarities between Shia and Catholicism are striking, the article argued. “In the Shia tradition, as in the Catholic one, there is a long line of succession through which sacred authority is thought to have been transferred over the centuries. Both among the Shias and the Catholics, there is emphasis on the idea of martyrdom leading to redemption.” But while Catholics and Protestants are working together, it said, the divisions between Shia and Sunni grow.
✣Meanwhile…
A new reality television programme in Spain will follow a group of would-be nuns as they take part in the daily lives of three convents in Madrid, Granada and Alicante. The five young women will spend six weeks working in a crèche with hundreds of children, living in a 500-year-old closed order and going on a mission into the Bolivian jungle. The series I Want To Be a Nun will cast some light on a community that is “rarely seen” on television, said producer Mariano Blanco of the television network Mediaset Spain. At the end of the series the five will “decide whether they want to dedicate their lives to God or if they would prefer to follow their faith as lay people”, according to the television network.
✣ US president Barack Obama still carries the rosary that Pope Francis gave him last year during the latter’s trip to the United States. In an interview with American YouTube star Ingrid Nilsen, President Obama said he carried a number of religious items in his pocket that people had given him over the years, because he found them meaningful. Displaying the rosary given to him by Pope Francis he said: “I so admire him and it makes me think about peace and promoting understanding and ethical behaviour.”
✣The week in quotations
If you are not able to bear humiliation, you are not humble Pope Francis Morning homily
The family keeps our society standing Family Day organiser Massimo Gandolfini Address to crowd
One month is all it takes to transform a disorientated teenager into a terrorist Cardinal Vincent Nichols Address to head teachers
[Europeans] have more dogs and cats than children Cardinal Charles Bo appealing to Filipinos to evangelise Europe Audience with Italian seminarians
✣Statistic of the week
1,071
Number of Missionaries of Mercy appointed by Pope Francis Source: Vatican
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