When the news broke about Pope Francis’ comment on promoting the “civil union” of homosexual couples, many people were asking my opinion on the issue. I admit that, at that time, I was also caught by surprise. I simply shrugged, not being able to say anything. Like everyone else, I needed to know more to substantiate any opinion I would be making.
From 1991 until 2005, Cardinal Camillo Ruini served Pope John Paul II as the papal Vicar for Rome — the man who handled the daily affairs of the diocese of which the Pope was, of course, bishop. Ruini was a creative cardinal-vicar who energized the Diocese of Rome for the New Evangelization — a concept he grasped perhaps better than any other Italian prelate.
How bad a year has it been? Let me not count the ways. Good books can hearten us in 2021 and beyond, though. Herewith, then, some suggestions for Christmastide book-giving.
The juxtaposition of Thanksgiving with the Church’s annual month of prayer for the dead hadn’t previously struck me with force; that it did this year has something to do, I expect, with my late sister-in-law, Linda Bauer Weigel.
The McCarrick Report did not, it turns out, please everyone, even as the world press weirdly turned it into an assault on John Paul II. But it certainly underscored that McCarrick was a singularly accomplished deceiver.
So, brave men and women of “Courage,” thank you for your witness. Please continue to take up the challenge that St. John Paul II issued on Oct. 22, 1978: “Be not afraid! Open the doors to Christ!” Your courage should inspire every Catholic to a similar fidelity, and to the mutual, prayerful support that helps sustain the integrity of love.
The college admissions process continues but looks a little different. Colleges still need to recruit qualified students while students and their parents are interested in finding the perfect place for their higher education needs. Welcome to the virtual college fair world.
The Pandemic of 2020 has been hard on every Catholic. Eucharistic fasting for this length of time may remind us what 20th century heroes of the faith in underground Churches endured, and what 21st century confessors in China and elsewhere endure today; and that is no bad thing. Still, it is very, very hard to be the Catholic Church without being a vibrantly eucharistic Church.
Sixty years ago, Father John Courtney Murray, SJ, published what I regard as the finest Catholic analysis of American democracy ever penned: “We Hold These Truths — Catholic Reflections on the American Proposition.”
As a basic principle, the proper place to celebrate the sacraments is the church, except, of course, the anointing of the sick, for obvious reasons. But most of the sacraments, whenever there is a situation that justifies it, can be administered somewhere else. For instance, we see confessions and Masses in these times of pandemic held outdoors.
