Four Scores Just Sixty Years Ago?
We are not confusing the blogosphere with reality about Vatican II. We are lamenting the confusion born from ambiguity and the party strife born from both.
We are not confusing the blogosphere with reality about Vatican II. We are lamenting the confusion born from ambiguity and the party strife born from both.
During and after the grim martial law period in the early 1980s, many freedom-minded Poles would greet each other on January 1 with a sardonic wish: “May the new year be better than you know it’s going to be!” As 2020 opens, that salutation might well be adopted by Catholics concerned about the future of … Read more
My late parents loved Cardinal George Pell, whom they knew for decades. So I found it a happy coincidence that, on November 12 (which would have been my parents’ 70th wedding anniversary), a two-judge panel of Australia’s High Court referred to the entire Court the cardinal’s request for “special leave” to appeal his incomprehensible conviction … Read more
“Having trivialized the past by equating it with outmoded . . . fashions and attitudes, people today resent anyone who draws on the past in serious discussions of contemporary conditions or attempts to use the past as a standard by which to judge the present… A denial of the past, superficially progressive and optimistic, proves … Read more
The Amazon synod touches directly or indirectly on many issues that will have repercussions far beyond the river basin. Among them is democracy and its relationship to the Church of Rome. The current Vatican regime claims that the principle of “synodality” in ecclesiastical government is both legitimate and valuable. Bishops are in closer contact with … Read more
While traditional Catholic morality might have been suitable in pre-modern times, the circumstances of modern (or postmodern) life make it impractical, unreasonable, and cruel—or so argue the progressives. The world has changed since 1800, they claim, beginning with the Industrial Revolution; societies and their moralities must change with it. Once-unimaginable advances in technique (the term … Read more
The feast of St. John Paul II was celebrated on October 22, the 39th anniversary of Karol Wojtyła’s formal installation as the Bishop of Rome. This occasion is an ideal time to reflect on St. John Paul the Great’s contribution to the Church and the world. Papal biographer George Weigel continues writing about the late Pope’s legacy, … Read more
Why was Pope John Paul canonized this past Sunday not alone but together with Pope John? There is a very good answer to this question: but it is not the one generally being touted by the liberal press, Catholic or secular. Here, for instance, is the often sensible John L Allen, writing in the National … Read more
Everybody would be rich if nobody tried to be richer. And nobody would be poor if everybody tried to be the poorest. And everybody would be what he ought to be if everybody tried to be what he wants the other fellow to be. — Peter … Read more
In his new book, George Weigel explicates the historical development of Evangelical Catholicism, a reform begun by Pope Leo XIII (1878-1903), developed by the renewals of the early twentieth-century, formalized by Vatican II, and authoritatively interpreted by John Paul II and Benedict XVI, and now expressed with particular aplomb by Pope Francis. It’s a stunning … Read more
So the date is set. Tuesday, the 12th of March, the Cardinals will process into the conclave intoning Veni Sancte Spiritus, while the rest of us—personally or digitally—will get the “extra omnes.” Out we go, leaving it up to the Princes of the Church to perform their duty. Buoyed by our prayers and best wishes, … Read more
William Oddie at the UK’s Catholic Herald took issue with George Weigel’s call for British bishops to get more confrontational with the New Atheism movement: [T]here are two reasons why they won’t and probably shouldn’t try. The first is that they are probably too frightened of them, even now, to do anything of the sort. … Read more
Last week, hell froze over when America‘s Michael Sean Winters complimented George Weigel’s criticism of the New York Times. Weigel, distinguished senior fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, also wrote a defense of Pope Benedict and the Catholic Church in The Philadelphia Inquirer today. Weigel points out that the Church, more than any … Read more