✣ Highlights from the week online
The Devil hates Latin At the New Liturgical Movement website David Clayton described a recent talk by exorcist Fr Gary Thomas (played by Anthony Hopkins in the film The Rite). Fr Thomas explained that the Rite of Exorcism was only said in Latin, partly for practical reasons, as there was no approved English translation yet. But there was another reason he favoured the use of Latin, according to Clayton. “The Devil hates Latin, it is the universal language of the Church,” Fr Thomas said. Clayton asked him about it later and he said “he had heard from exorcists who did exorcisms in Italian, Spanish and Portuguese (the only approved vernaculars for this Rite) that Latin was the most effective language”. Fr John Zuhlsdorf hailed the comments on his blog. “There are a lot of people out there, liberals mostly, who hate Latin. What does it mean for the identity of Catholics in the Latin Church when they almost never hear any Latin and have even been led to disdain it?” He suggested: “Let’s all recite together the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel just to irritate the Enemy, and throw some holy water around while you’re at it!” Let’s end Popesplaining Are you a Popesplainer? In her blog post this week, Amy Welborn writes against “Popesplaining”, a term similar to “mansplaining”, which refers to men patronising women through unnecessary explanations. Following heated debate among Catholics trying to make sense of Francis’s remarks on contraception, she said: “Quite a few issues have popped up recently – well, more or less continuously over the past three years – but the fundamental, underlying problem ... is the importance given to papal statements. Papal paragraphs. Papal sentences, participles and even papal pauses. All of which require continual, exhaustive and exhausting rounds of what I’ve come to call Popesplaining” – namely different individuals scrabbling to explain what exactly Francis means. She said: “Our discussions should be grounded in humility and an acceptance of our limited understanding”, adding that “wondering if a pope is doing or saying the right thing does not make one an unfaithful Catholic or a sedevacantist”. Jealous of a Jedi Fr Dwight Longenecker has admitted he is jealous of the Star Wars Jedi master Luke Skywalker – specifically because he has taken refuge as a hermit on the Irish island of Skellig Michael. “There’s something in me that wants the cave, the cloister, the solitary cell. I want to close the door and curl up with a pile of good books and get away from all the hustle and hurry of this old world.” Fr Longenecker said that for him the commandment to love one’s neighbour did not complement a solitary life. “Nevertheless, when Lent rolls around my inner hermit comes out of his cell.”
