✣ Highlights from the week online
A breakthrough in Vietnam? Not just yetThe media is focused on a possible breakthrough between China and the Vatican. But there’s another diplomatic agreement on the cards, said Gerard O’Connell at America magazine.
Vietnam and the Holy See may be “close to establishing diplomatic relations”. Six million Vietnamese – out of a population of 91 million – are Catholic, and “the Church enjoys religious freedom, though sometimes problems surface regarding questions of justice, including requests for the return of confiscated church properties.”
A joint working group was established in 2009, and this followed several positive steps. In 1975, the communists “broke diplomatic relations with the Holy See, but they never persecuted the Catholic Church as China did.”
Today, diplomatic relations are close, but Vietnam has hesitated about a deal. Above all, this is because “Vietnam has considered China its big brother and may fear that if it were to move first in establishing diplomatic relations with the Holy See, this could upset Beijing.” So full relations may take a while.
Trust a confessor: sin is seriously dull
At his Patheos blog, Fr Dwight Longenecker made an admission: hearing confessions can be boring. “Don’t get me wrong. I am not bored by people. I love people and am endlessly fascinated by people. People aren’t boring. Their problems aren’t boring. But sin is boring. Really.”
The Devil tries to make sin look attractive, Fr Longenecker wrote, but really it is a “sad, boring, dead dull and distorted thing”, to be regarded “as you would a dead rat–with disgust and horror”.
What to do? Pray “that you will see and know and come to love the radiant beauty of goodness. Pray that you might come to know, understand and love the joyous power of goodness.”
The temptations of Catholic tradition
At New Liturgical Movement, Peter Kwasniewski asked whether traditionalism is a “spiritual malady”. He was replying to a commenter who suggested that “adherence to tradition” can lead to personality flaws like “spiritual superiority ... Or, even worse, when adherence to tradition becomes a way of avoiding intimacy with God, oneself, and other people.”
Kwasniewski responded that these temptations “will come upon every serious Catholic”, but that a far worse “spiritual sickness” was not caring about “a fundamental disjunct between a modern reinterpretation of Catholicism … and the Catholicism of the ages, that is, what would have been recognisable to any Father, Doctor, scholar, king or peasant for the first 1,900 years of the Church.”
We shouldn’t worry too much about forgetting our personality flaws, Kwasniewski added: “If we are married or have good friends, we won’t be allowed to go for long without being reminded of them.”
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ A Catholic news presenter danced on his desk after Donald Trump secured his presidential victory last week. Michael Voris performed a jig in red socks representing the Republican Party. The performance, shown on his online news channel The Vortex, was not a spontaneous expression of triumph. He told viewers at ChurchMilitant.com: “A promise is a promise.”
Voris urged his audience to join in too, but the dance, to Pharrell Williams’s song Happy, lasted less than 10 seconds.
✣ From a happy life to a happy death: Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor shared the experience of a priest who prepared for the inevitable by spending a lifetime “coming to terms with the old enemy, death” – and stocking up on champagne.
Speaking on BBC Radio 2’s Pause for Thought, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor recalled the story of a few seminarians gathered at the bedside of a dying priest. Opening one eye, the priest instructed them to open the bottle of champagne carefully stored in a drawer with some glasses. After they had distributed the glasses among themselves, the priest opened the other eye and asked: “What about me?” The cardinal concluded that “the way to have a good death is to try to live a good life”.
✣ The week in quotations
We enter respectful dialogue with President Donald Trump
Archbishop Joseph Kurtz, president of US bishops’ conference
Speech to US bishops
We are better people than this
Archbishop José Gomez denounces the US’s approach to illegal immigrants
Prayer vigil for unity
I have a weakness for old ladies, especially those who are funny
Pope Francis
Interview with Fr Antonio Spadaro
Mercy dissolves the hardness in our hearts
Archbishop Welby
Address at Vespers in Westminster Cathedral
