✣Highlights from the week online
Francis, don’t do this deal with the SSPX Giving SSPX clergy full regularised status in the Church via selective acceptance of Vatican II would be a “very, very bad idea”, wrote George Weigel at First Things. He cited Archbishop Guido Pozzo, a senior Vatican official involved in discussions with the Lefebvrists, that “the teachings of Vatican II do not all have the same doctrinal weight”, so “the Lefebvrists would be given a pass on the Council’s affirmation of religious freedom, ecumenism, and interreligious dialogue”.But Weigel argued: “To restore SSPX clergy to full communion with Rome while letting them cross their fingers behind their backs on religious freedom (and ecumenism) when they make the profession of faith and take the oath of fidelity would, by a bizarre ultra-traditionalist route, enshrine a ‘right to dissent’ within the Church.”
And such “faithful dissent”, he said, “would reinforce the notion that doctrine is not about truth, but about power”.
Beautiful churches are making a comeback
One legacy of Vatican II’s aftermath is utilitarian church architecture, wrote Fr Dwight Longenecker at cruxnow.com “With an idealistic iconoclasm, older church buildings were gutted,” Fr Longenecker recalled. “Much-loved statues were relegated to the basement. Tile or wooden floors were smothered in carpeting, while Gothic furniture and fittings were stripped out, sold or even thrown on the bonfire.” But the “flat, modern church buildings have not aged well”, he wrote.
“Happily a new generation of pastors, teeming with skilled and informed architects and designers, are doing their best to restore the historic buildings and renovate the modern buildings – introducing into them elements of traditional Catholic architecture.”
Fr Longenecker offered several examples of how what he calls “Pizza Hut” churches can be converted into edifices which are “a sign and symbol of heavenly realities”.
Donald Trump’s pro-life presidency
Donald Trump’s first 100 days have been great for the pro-life movement, according to Fr Frank Pavone, of Priests for Life, and Alveda King, director of Civil Rights for the Unborn at Priests for Life. The pair wrote a joint article for the Washington Examiner.
“It’s hard to recall a three-month period where so many pro-life advancements have occurred,” they wrote.
These include the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, stopping money from federal departments and agencies being given to groups that perform or promote abortions in foreign countries, and preventing taxpayers’ money being used to fund abortions in the US by reinstating the Mexico City Policy.
“It’s been a great first 100 days of the Trump administration for pro-lifers,” wrote King and Fr Pavone.
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ A former beauty queen has become a nun. Last year Esmeralda Solís Gonzáles was crowned a beauty queen in her native town in Mexico. But the 20-year-old then gave up her career as a nutritionist to join the Poor Clare Missionaries of the Blessed Sacrament.“You really don’t know what religious life is until you’re within it. So far I have been able to see from another perspective what the world is and what it offers you,” she told CNA. “I was very happy with everything I had, but it does not compare with the happiness that God now places in my heart.”
✣ Two years ago the actress Faye Dunaway said in Esquire: “I’m a new Catholic. I love the Church; I love Mass. I go every morning at 6.30am. When I’m on the right track spiritually and emotionally, things happen in my life. It’s mysterious.”
Now the actress – famous for her roles in Bonnie and Clyde and Chinatown – is playing a psychologist in The Case for Christ, based on Lee Strobel’s book about his conversion from atheist to believer. Asked whether 500 eyewitnesses could have been sharing the same delusion when they saw Jesus after he rose from the dead, her character replies: “That would have been an even bigger miracle than the Resurrection.”
✣ The week in quotations
The Pope’s visit boosted the morale of the Egyptian people Fr Rafic Greiche, bishops’ spokesmanCatholic News ServiceI have the impression our voters are totally lost
Cardinal Barbarin of Lyon on France’s presidential election
Interview with CAI
Don’t sit comfortably in an armchair. It’s bad for your cholesterol
Pope Francis
Address to Italian Catholic Action
Our country stands on the edge
Zambia’s bishops say police are treating the opposition brutally
Press statement
✣ Statistic of the week
26
Venezuelans killed in three weeks of civil unrest last month
Source: Attorney General Luisa Ortega Díaz
