On My Way to Amsterdam, Edward B. Gordon

On My Way to Amsterdam, Edward B. Gordon

Letter to Pope Francis from Catholic Women ... and also Catholic Men

We write to you, Holy Father, to pose questions that need answers.

We are Catholic women deeply committed to our faith and profoundly grateful for Church teachings, the Sacraments, and the many good bishops and priests who have blessed our lives.

Our hearts are broken, our faith tested, by the escalating crisis engulfing our beloved Church. We are angry, betrayed and disillusioned. The pain and suffering of the victims never ends, as each news cycle brings more horrific revelations of sexual abuse, sexual misconduct, cover-ups, and deceit—even at the Church’s highest levels. ...

Several crucial questions raised by Archbishop Viganò’s statement, however, require neither lengthy investigations nor physical evidence. They require only your direct response, Holy Father. When reporters questioned you recently about Archbishop Viganò’s charges, you replied, “I will not say a single word on this.” You told reporters to “read the statement carefully and make your own judgment.”

To your hurting flock, Pope Francis, your words are inadequate. They sting, reminiscent of the clericalism you so recently condemned. We need leadership, truth, and transparency. We, your flock, deserve your answers now. ...

This is an excellent letter which will be sent very soon to Pope Francis. Read the whole thing. It is eloquent, respectful, and expresses my feelings well so I signed it. I am one of over 35,000 Catholic women to do so.

A letter was written today from men who are standing alongside Catholic women. I was really touched, actually, seeing these men talk about being in love with Christ and his Church. You may read and sign it here.

I wrote my own letter last week (because of course I did) and mailed it off to Vatican City but have a feeling these letters will get more attention. Regardless, I have done what I can and now will fast and pray.

St. Catherine of Siena, pray for us and Pope Francis and the Church. Amen.

Captain Blood, N.C. Wyeth

Captain Blood, N.C. Wyeth

We watched The Black Swan this weekend — no, not the one with too many Natalie Portmans — a 1942 pirate swashbuckler starring Tyrone Power and Maureen O'Hara. I'd been reading a lot of Rafael Sabatini lately and, though I hadn't read this book yet, I was in the mood for escaping reality. It was a lot of fun though, as I discovered afterward, not nearly as good as the book. I'm so glad I encountered the movie first.

Tom was looking around and came across this wonderful cover by N.C. Wyeth for Sabatini's more famous pirate tale. (Not my fave, but to each his own.) The look of the movie was as if it had been lifted from this cover, which was a wise choice if that's what happened.

Bulls and the Bullring

It is not the same to talk of bulls as to be in the bullring.

Spanish proverb

Every culture has a way of saying this, I think, which just goes to show that human nature never really changes. There is always the person holding forth theoretically, as if it were the same as real life. And then there is the experience of getting in there and facing the bull. You can't beat hands on experience for really understanding something.

Well Said: The Very Heart of Religion

Gregor flushed as he went on: "The entire content of the Confesions could be put into one single sentence in the book: when Augustine addresses God, saying: 'Thou hast made us for Thyself and our heart is unquiet until it rests in Thee.' This sentence, my lords and friends, is immortal. It contains the very heart of religion."

Louis de Wohl, The Restless Flame

Ain't that the truth!

3 Week Old Ass

3 Week Old Ass

O big, brown brother out of the waste, How do thistles for breakfast taste?

“The Ass”

I woke and rose and slipt away
To the heathery hills in the morning grey.

In a field where the dew lay cold and deep
I met an ass, new-roused from sleep.

I stroked his nose and I tickled his ears,
And spoke soft words to quiet his fears.

His eyes stared into the eyes of me
And he kissed my hands of his courtesy.

“O big, brown brother out of the waste,
How do thistles for breakfast taste?

“And do you rejoice in the dawn divine
With a heart that is glad no less than mine?

“For, brother, the depth of your gentle eyes
Is strange and mystic as the skies:

“What are the thoughts that grope behind,
Down in the mist of a donkey mind?

“Can it be true, as the wise men tell,
That you are a mask of God as well,

“And, as in us, so in you no less
Speaks the eternal Loveliness,

“And words of the lips that all things know
Among the thoughts of a donkey go?

“However it be, O four-foot brother,
Fair to-day is the earth, our mother.

“God send you peace and delight thereof,
And all green meat of the waste you love,

“And guard you well from violent men
Who’d put you back in the shafts again.”

But the ass had far too wise a head
To answer one of the things I said,

So he twitched his fair ears up and down
And turned to nuzzle his shoulder brown.

C.S. Lewis, 1919

I discovered this via The Fellowship: The Literary Lives of the Inklings by Philip and Carol Zaleski, which I am enjoying more than any other biography I've read of Tolkien, Lewis, or The Inklings. They comment:

In its pastoral serenity, its humor ("O big, brown brother out of the waste, / How do thistles for breakfast taste?"), its Franciscan love of lowly creatureliness, this poem one might expect from Lewis at fifty years of age; it is a happy harbinger of things to come.

GetReligion is the place to go for Catholic news analysis

I've long been a fan of GetReligion where reporters examine how the media covers religion. Time and again they point out where biases are presented as fact, where big questions aren't asked, and where the good coverage is.

They help me examine the public story of "what everybody knows" and keep my own sense of balance. You never have to just take their word for it because links are always provided so you can go read all the original reporting for yourself. Each piece is the best news roundup you can find.

In the case of all the Catholic chaos lately GetReligion is again keeping me thinking, alert, and balanced.

I strongly recommend you add them to your media of preference to make sure you're seeing all the angles, whether for good or ill.

You can't do better than to begin with this story by Julia Duin who's been impressing me with her analysis: Coverage by the conservative and global press raises the stakes in Viganò affair.

Cardinal DiNardo: reaffirmed call for a prompt and thorough examination into how the grave moral failings of a brother bishop could have been tolerated for so long and proven no impediment to his advancement.

I was just wondering yesterday if we'd hear again from Cardinal DiNardo (president of the U.S. Bishop's Council) about plans for the future in reference to Cardinal McCarrick. After the first flurry of press releases, it would be easy to let things die down until the bishops' conference in a few months.

Nope. He read my mind and came out with a piece yesterday which makes me feel he is really urgent and cares about the issue, especially since he mentions Archbishop Viganò's letter. Here's a bit but do go read it all.

Yesterday, I convened our Executive Committee once again, and it reaffirmed the call for a prompt and thorough examination into how the grave moral failings of a brother bishop could have been tolerated for so long and proven no impediment to his advancement.

"The recent letter of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò brings particular focus and urgency to this examination. The questions raised deserve answers that are conclusive and based on evidence. Without those answers, innocent men may be tainted by false accusation and the guilty may be left to repeat sins of the past.

... I am confident Pope Francis shares our desire for greater effectiveness and transparency in the matter of disciplining bishops. We renew our fraternal affection for the Holy Father in these difficult days.

ALSO, Bishop Barron has a video Q&A about the Sexual Abuse Crisis. Note: the audio has also been uploaded to the Word on Fire podcast feed.

Friends, many of you have asked for my thoughts on the McCarrick abuse crisis, the Pennsylvania grand jury report, and the recent report from Archbishop Viganò. We're all devastated by the horrific suffering of these many victims, and we're all wondering what to do next.

I shared some thoughts a couple weeks ago, in an article, but I thought it might be helpful to have a more candid conversation today, building on the USCCB's statement just released, which I wholly support.

Please watch the discussion, and together let's pray for the victims and the entire Body of Christ.

Stu-mick-o-súcks (Buffalo Bull's Back Fat)

Stu-mick-o-súcks (Buffalo Bull's Back Fat), George Catlin

I'd never heard of George Catlin before but was fascinated by his portraits of Native Americans in the Old West. Wikipedia tells us: Traveling to the American West five times during the 1830s, Catlin was the first white man to depict Plains Indians in their native territory. And that is also fascinating.

Sunset

Sunset, Tom Thomson

Hair bigger than a meringue ... the beginning of a new bad movie series on More is More.

Hannah & Rose discuss the irresistible charms of sullen teenagers, the irresistible allure of sullen vampires, and why if you has transfer high schools in the middle of your junior year, you should transfer to Forks as they watch Twilight (2008) on More is More, the bad movie podcast.

Sounds ... irresistible!

On seeing God clearly

When you come to knowing God, the initiative lies on His side. If He does not show Himself, nothing you can do will enable you to find Him. And, in fact, He shows much more of Himself to some people than to others—not because He has favourites, but because it is impossible for Him to show Himself to a man whose whole mind and character are in the wrong condition. Just as sunlight, though it has no favourites, cannot be reflected in a dusty mirror as clearly as in a clean one.

... if a man’s self is not kept clean and bright, his glimpse of God will be blurred—like the Moon seen through a dirty telescope. ...

God can show Himself as He really is only to real men. And that means not simply to men who are individually good, but to men who are united together in a body, loving one another, helping one another, showing Him to one another. For that is what God meant humanity to be like; like players in one band, or organs in one body.

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Songbird in the Reeds

Songbird in Reeds, Ohara Koson

The worst part of sin is its hiddenness.

The worst part of sin is its hiddenness. It hides everywhere under the pretense that it is something natural, that it is something unavoidable, and that the power, gravity, or tragedy of life is expressed by it. If we are witnesses here of Christ's fate, our eyes are opened wide to this pretense.

Romano Guardini, commenting on the Agony in the Garden,
The Rosary of Our Lady

Rereading: To Know Christ Jesus by Frank Sheed

This is a synthesis of the Gospel stories, looking at the life of our Lord as a whole in the context of his times and environment as well as of religion. I'm just beginning to reread it but had forgotten, since I last read it 8 years ago, that Sheed's approach is fresh and modern seeming which is extraordinary since it was first published in 1962.

He looks at characters I never thought about, such as Theophilus, for whom Luke wrote his gospel and Acts of the Apostles. After musing about whether Theophilus was a Christian and what he might have been taught before sitting down to read Luke's work, Sheed puts us in touch with how the gospel would have struck Theophilus and been generally responded to in that age.

The Greek word "akribos"—it means accurately, carefully—could hardly have prepared him for what follows immediately—the angel Gabriel bringing to the priest Zachary the announcement that his elderly wife would bear his elderly self a son, the angel going on to tell a virgin in Nazareth that she would conceive. One imagines Theophilus incredulously muttering "akribos" to himself—all the more if he had known Luke as a pagan in his medical student days at Tarsus.

Notice too how Sheed reminds us of Luke's own background and the testimony of having such a man write about Christ.

He also makes me laugh with the wry way he brings St. Paul down to earth and has sympathy for the man in the pew:

...if only we had notes of that long sermon preached by Paul at Troas, during which Eutychus, surely the patron saint of the Sunday laity, fell asleep!

All of these little touches make those ancient times and people live and breathe for us ... as well as bringing us, we hope, closer to knowing Christ Jesus more personally.

Julie, Jesse, and Maissa talk about Heinlein, Kipling, and Harriet Beecher Stowe

It's the SFFaudio readalong discussion of Citizen of the Galaxy by Robert Heinlein, my personal favorite of his books. We had tons of fun. Join us!

Tres Leches Cake, Puerto Rican Style

I've never really enjoyed Tres Leches Cake which always struck me as being mildly sweet, soggy, and a bit milky. Nothing really special. Then I read about this version. Rose made it for a meal provided for our parish's men's retreat and months later she's still getting compliments.

It is so delicate but also so flavorful. A hint of coconut is perfectly complimented by the nutmeg and cinnamon sprinkled across the top. Get it at Meanwhile, Back in the Kitchen.

Always happy to be Catholic?

I look at my subtitle these days and find it is still true. I am still happy to be Catholic.

Some may wonder how that can be in the wake of the revelations about sexual predator Cardinal McCarrick who was an open secret among many of his brother bishops. Or in the wake of the grand jury report on Pennsylvania detailing 70 years of misconduct and systematic church coverup in six dioceses across the state. (PDF of report here.)

The Pennsylvania report which has been the subject of so much reporting is not really news. We got a lot of this bad news during the first wave of the scandals in the nineties and early aughts. The good part was that things seem to be on the mend, as the report itself mentions, in that much has improved over the last fifteen years. That is reason for hope.

For me the most illuminating part was that it went back seven decades, well beyond the common understanding of this problem arising as part of the post-Vatican II era and the sexual revolution. It made me think of Bishop Barron's reflections on the original scandal as a diabolical masterpiece because "that awful crisis just seemed too thought-through, too well-coordinated, to be simply the result of chance or wicked human choice."

My thoughts turned to Pope Leo XIII who is said to have written the St. Michael prayer in response to a vision he had of Satan being allowed to test the Church and choosing the 20th century. The visible threats to the Church during that time from changing governments and social values and other sources suddenly seemed like only one front in a global war. We fought the threats we could see while under the surface innocent people were victims of an evil we couldn't imagine. An evil perpetrated by a fifth column* of trusted priests and bishops.

For that reason I welcome the report. It sheds light into the darkness. I welcome the exposure of Archbishop McCarrick and those who joined his evil by their silence. If we do not see the source of an infection, the existence of a cancer, how can we eradicate it? Now we know the hard truth. Now we can work through the shock and horror of new knowledge. Now we can begin the long work of healing and rebuilding for the victims, for the Church, and, yes, even for the hated perpetrators and collaborators, many of whom are still in denial.

I know many are so angry and hurt and upset that they are talking of leaving or indeed have already left. I grieve for them but in my own case the reality of the Church is not the deeds these evil men have perpetrated in her name. They have corrupted and perverted the Truth that Christ gave us. Where could I go? There is nowhere else that has the fullness of truth. I am not happy about anything to do with this whole mess, but I am happy that the sure foundation of Christ and His Church is here for me.

As a result of this, many [of] his disciples returned to their former way of life and no longer accompanied him.

Jesus then said to the Twelve, “Do you also want to leave?”

Simon Peter answered him, “Master, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We have come to believe and are convinced that you are the Holy One of God.”

Gospel of John 6:66-69

So how do we practice our own share of that healing and rebuilding work? Elizabeth Scalia has 7 good, practical steps we can take. They are at the bottom of her piece if you are in a hurry, though the whole thing is good. Here's the personal part for everyday:

• Help define what makes a healthy church and begin to be yourself the church you want to see by becoming an open conduit for the love, justice, and mercy of Christ, and the movement of the Holy Spirit, to come forth—even if how Christ defines justice and mercy is not quite as you would prefer; even if the Holy Spirit seems to be taking a turn you don’t understand. That openness is essential because it is a form of consent that speeds along both the action of the Spirit and the glory of God.

... commit to deepening your own prayer life. Pick up the Divine Office and pray some part of it daily. If the opportunity to pray before the Blessed Sacrament is available to you, take advantage of it. Ignore anyone who tells you that it’s an antiquated medieval piety best left behind, which is precisely the sort of stupid, arrogant thinking that helped bring us to where we are. How can praying before the very Presence of Christ be anything but good and powerful? Hint: it can’t.

Two more imperatives:

• Fast.
• Offer up your own troubles for the healing of the Church and in reparation for all of her sins. Yes, offering it up is still a thing, and it is powerful.

I add to the above that we need to keep our priests and bishops in our prayers. The vast majority of priests are good men who are also in shock over the latest revelations, trying to shepherd their flocks through this flood of troubles. Likewise, not every bishop was part of the uncaring, collaborative hierarchy.

*A group within a country at war who are sympathetic to or working for its enemies.

Kingfisher

Kingfisher, Remo Savisaar