The grittiness of Lent, and the “intransigent historical claims” without which Easter makes no sense at all, should remind us that Christianity does not rest on myths or “narratives,” but on radically changed human lives whose effect on their times are historical fact.
“When everything seems too much, when it seems that the world is crashing down around you, embrace his cross, draw close to him and please, never let go of his hand; please, never leave him,” Pope Francis said.
Thinking in terms of the little engine that could, the annual Catholic Almanac, which sells about 5,000 copies each year, not only could, it can and does, each and every year since 1904.
The crucial moment in this calculated aggression came 70 years ago, on March 8-10, 1946, in Lviv, Ukraine. There, after more than a year of secret police coercion, a non-canonical “council” (or “Sobor”) of Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy “voted” (without discussion and by a “spontaneous” show of hands) to abrogate the 1596 Union of Brest that had brought their Church into full communion with Rome. Not a single Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop was present.
YOU’VE GOT TO have a good memory for mid-Sixties pop music to remember the Seekers, an Aussie quartet that once vied for the top of the British charts with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and did quite well here in the U.S., too). But this isn’t a pop culture quiz; it’s a reflection on our increasingly disturbing 2016 presidential election, with a little help from, yes, the Seekers.
I WAS SITTING in a reconciliation room once, confessing my usual garden variety list of sins when I was suddenly aware that the priest was gazing out the window. Being reflective, perhaps? No, I was fairly sure he was daydreaming. I left my confession with the feeling that I was forgiven by God but ignored by my confessor.
“Choice” rings hollow when pressures come from family members who increasingly see their financial resources being drained and their loved ones as burdens; when health insurance companies will pay for a lethal dose of drugs, but deny a claim for expensive chemotherapy treatments; when health providers subtly make judgment calls about whose lives are worth living and whose are not; and when the mechanisms of our very government sanction and assist in death-making.
Some people are not distracted, and Nancy Reagan was one of those who was not distracted. May she rest in eternal peace.
Ever since the Maidan revolution of dignity, Russian propaganda has been pumped into the world in a steady stream. Most unfortunately, it has too often misrepresented what the Kremlin is up to in Ukraine while slandering Ukraine’s Greek Catholic leaders.
Early in the 1980s, the historic Church of the Holy Apostles, serving the Chelsea neighborhood of New York since 1848, was dying. Membership was down and money was scarce. Undaunted, the pastor and congregation started a soup kitchen.
