✣Highlights from the week online
The Religious who tracks down the dead Alfa y Omega, a magazine of the Madrid archdiocese, interviewed a Redemptorist brother who documents extra-judicial killings in the Philippines. Brother Ciriaco Santiago, a photographer, visits crime scenes in the capital, Manila, after his day’s work with the order.The night before he had seen people shot dead. “Our vocation is to be with those who are most abandoned. We want to use the photos as proof, and to get the attention of the international community,” he said.
How to enjoy Belgian beer like a monk
Trappist monks at the Abbey of Scourmont in Belgium are famous for making Chimay beer. Less well known is their cheese. Now the monks have offered advice on how to enjoy the two together.
At their website chimay.com/en/labbaye, they describe the four stages of the experience:
“Take a sip of beer slowly, so as to appreciate its flavour alone.
“Eat a piece of cheese, without the rind.
“Eat another piece of cheese, this time including the rind.
“Finally, drink a generous amount of beer to mix and enjoy the different flavours in your mouth … Enjoy!”
The priest who helped Jackie Kennedy
Bishop Robert Barron considers the art of pastoral counselling as it is portrayed on the silver screen in Jackie.
Natalie Portman plays Jackie Kennedy in the aftermath of her husband John F Kennedy’s murder. She seeks the guidance of a priest, played by John Hurt in one of his last roles.
In a post at his Word On Fire blog, Bishop Barron wrote that “anyone interested in the art of pastoral counselling, in the problem of reconciling belief in God with great suffering, and in the human search for meaning will find the exchanges between Jackie and the priest fascinating”.
Examining their scenes, Bishop Barron said: “He is carefully navigating between the shoals of denying that God is really involved with the world and affirming that the ways of God’s providence are clear to us.
“He is quietly insisting that though we don’t know precisely how God’s purposes are being worked out, we do know that he is intimately present to us,” Bishop Barron wrote.
Hymns don’t count as truly Catholic music
Is there such a thing as Catholic music? Mark Langley, a teacher and music director at his local church in Ohio, asks the question in his blog at lionandox.com. Langley notes that hymns, largely western European in origin, may not be universally appealing.
Langley suggests that Gregorian chant is truly universal music, saying: “Gregorian chant makes everyone equally comfortable (or uncomfortable) because it does not belong to this or that tribe or family. It is the distinct music of the Catholic Church.”
✣ Meanwhile…
✣ The Syro-Malabar Church has said that yoga may be good for your health but it is not “a means to experience the divine”.The Syro-Malabar Synod of Bishops made the remark in a note to clergy. Yoga is compulsory in Indian schools. In their statement they said it “must be considered a physical exercise, a posture to concentrate or meditate”. By contrast, “the divine experience does not need any particular posture,” the synod added.
✣ A charity’s plan to stage mock crucifixions has been dropped after it drew complaints.
The Passion Trust offered the “full crucifixion experience” for £750 in an effort to raise funds for a Passion play. Although organisers stressed that there would be “no nails, no pain”, the stunt was quickly scrapped.
The Rev Falak Sher, a canon at Manchester Cathedral, told The Times: “As soon as we saw the website, people were really upset. I thought this was not a good way of raising funds.”
✣ David Suchet, best known for his role as Hercule Poirot, has given a public reading of the Gospel of Mark at St Paul’s Cathedral.
An Anglican, Suchet said he converted to Christianity in 1986 after reading St Paul and discovering “a way of life that I had been looking for all those years”.
✣ The week in quotations
He doesn’t want a big party
Archbishop Georg Gänswein on Benedict XVI’s 90th birthday on Sunday
Remarks on the Italian television show Matrix
Each passing day sees new killings and burning of religious buildings
Congolese bishops
Statement on bishops’ conference website
Such a discussion is of the utmost necessity
Cardinal Walter Kasper on married priests
Katholisch.de
the greatest tragedy of our time
Cardinal Robert Sarah
LifeSiteNews.com
✣ Statistic of the week
1.28bn
Number of baptised Catholics at the end of 2015, a rise of 7.4 per cent over five years
2017 Annuario Pontificio
