Last Saturday, Judge Brett Kavanaugh was sworn in as the 114th Associate Supreme Court Justice by Chief Justice John Roberts. Outside, protesters pushed past a police line and pounded on the doors of the U.S. Supreme Court chanting, “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Kavanaugh has got to go.”
Author: settinger
The Vigano Letter
Dear Editor: Thank you John Allen Jr. for trying to make “sense of McCarrick cover-up charges.”(The Tablet, front cover, Sept. 11). Sadly, your article is not convincing. True, Archbishop Vigano made several allegations in his 11-page memo. If but one or two are true – it is explosive. Did Pope Benedict ever place McCarrick in “time out.” That should be easy to prove without finding or reviewing documents. Just look at his lifestyle between the alleged time out and Pope Francis giving him a “get out of jail card.” Change? If so – guilty.
Christ and Class Warfare
Dear Editor: I was exasperated reading Mary Geraghty (Readers’ Forum, “Catholic Values, Sept. 8) reducing the life of Christ to a leftist proponent of class warfare. She calls Him a radical when He was the exact opposite, the perfect reactionary, an enemy of the very revolutions that interpret humanity as a dichotomy between the powerful and the weak.
Papal Visit to the Baltics
Dear Editor: I would like to thank The Tablet for your interesting article in the Sept. 29 edition about Pope Francis’ visit to the Marian shrine in Aglona, Latvia. The Lithuanian community of the Brooklyn Diocese was particularly thrilled by our Holy Father’s historic visit to the three Baltic nations this past month. In addition to his visit to Latvia, our Holy Father also spent two days in neighboring Lithuania, as well as a day in Estonia.
Understanding Trauma, Aiding in Healing
I recently attended some training on “trauma-informed care.” It was quite eye-opening. Traumatic experiences in childhood are more common than we’d like to believe. Research indicates that more than 60 percent of adults experienced some form of trauma in childhood, events such as the divorce of parents, ongoing drug use in their home, physical violence, or sexual abuse. I learned that one out of four girls and one out of six boys experience some form of sexual abuse before age 18.
Times May Change, Christ Does Not
In the Gospel this weekend, the Pharisees are up to their old tricks, trying to slip Jesus up by indicating that what He’s saying is at odds with what Moses taught about marriage and divorce. Moses, it seemed, was a lot more permissive about those bills of divorce, but Jesus is drawing the line in the sand much more decisively.
The Way Forward in an Age of Attention Deficit
It has been said that St. John Paul II was our first “media” pope. His international visits attracted scores of media attention. Television footage of millions attending a papal Mass were awe-inspiring. In 1987, the Holy Father delivered a prayer for world peace to more than a billion people thanks to satellite TV. Media technology was helping to spread the Gospel message farther and wider than ever before.
A Source of Unity
His Holiness, Pope Francis, has asked Catholics throughout the world to pray the Rosary daily throughout the month of October. This is hardly groundbreaking as October is traditionally the month of the Holy Rosary.
A Season in Purgatory
Finally, autumn is here, after a long, painful summer. The Church and the country have gone to a veritable purgatory since last June. Sexual abuse scandals and allegations of sexual misdeeds and cover-ups have crowded the headlines almost every week.
The Roles of Lay People
Dear Editor: I take issue with the statement that “a lay person is supposed to serve in only one function at Mass” in the letter about deacons written by “name withheld” (Readers’ Forum, Sept. 1).