✣ Highlights from the week online
Evangelising Cockneys Cardinal John Henry Newman, according to John Allen of Crux, could be described as the “patron saint of relevance” as he was one of a handful of thinkers “able to make ancient traditions relevant to the contemporary situation”. Such a tradition, he said, has been kept alive by Catholic Voices, a group of Catholics trained to defend the Church in the public square. To illustrate this he recalled the time he spent in England during Newman’s beatification in 2010. He wrote: “Because it was a Sunday there were a number of rowdy English soccer fans on hand waiting to watch that day’s matches ... TVs in the bar were still carrying the final images of the pope’s Mass, and no matter which English network they had on, there were Catholic Voices commentators. “I settled in at the bar next to a couple of guys with thick Cockney accents who, having nothing better to do, found themselves listening to the TV, where a young Catholic woman was describing what faith meant to her in daily life. She came off as rational, funny, and, well, just completely normal and sane. “One of the Cockney guys said to the other: ‘Oi! I guess them Catholics ain’t so bleedin’ crazy after all!’ That, in a nutshell, was the legacy of John Henry Newman in action.” Ecumenists’ example At SaltandLighttv.org Sebastian Gomes said ill-tempered Catholics could learn a thing or two from ecumenists. When attending ecumenical events, he said, “I’m always deeply impressed and inspired by their resolve, pastoral and theological sensitivity and joy, frankly, despite the slow, uphill battle they are fighting. “For hundreds of years Protestants and Catholics adopted an ‘us against them’ attitude that defined, in part, their ecclesial identities. Today that attitude is impossible to maintain theologically, not least because it’s simply anti-Christian. But it has not gone away. Instead it’s been redirected at fellow Catholics. A quick search on the internet will unearth a number of Catholic commentators who define their ‘catholicity’ by the apparent ‘unorthodoxy’ of other Catholics.” The Salt+Light host suggested that “Catholics (including Catholic bishops) can also reflect on the meaning of unity within the Catholic Church itself and pray that the Holy Spirit removes mistrust and inspires charity”. The foot-odour factor Mulier Fortis wonders if, given how reluctant most men are to take part in the Holy Thursday foot-washing rite, there will be a “gradual (or not so gradual) dominance of female volunteers” following Pope Francis’s ruling. “After all, we have (on the whole) prettier, more dainty feet than men ... and generally less foot odour,” she wrote.
