✣Highlights from the week online
Why being a nun beats the Olympics A CBS report asked why more and more young British women are joining religious life. That number hit a low of seven in 2004, the report noted. By 2014 it had increased to 45 – the highest number in a quarter-century. An average of 25 have joined annually in the last three years.CBS interviewed Kirstin Holum, a former Olympic speed-skater who set junior world records and competed, aged 17, in the Winter Olympics. “To the surprise of her family and friends, Holum entered the community of the Franciscan Sisters of the Renewal in the Bronx after finishing college.” Six years later, she was among those sent to open a new convent on the invitation of the Bishop of Leeds.
Holum, now 38, said that competing had provided “a great thrill”, but it “was always a fleeting joy”. She added: “I think deep down, everyone is desiring to be great and to do something great. It’s only when you get really in touch with God’s plan for you that you really find a peace in doing the great thing, whatever it might be.”
A German study of the Argentine Pope
Der Spiegel, the left-leaning German weekly with a circulation of more than 800,000, has turned its attention to Pope Francis – and its comments are distinctly critical. In a 4,500-word report, published last Saturday, the magazine claims that there is “massive” discontent in the global Church, and not just among “archconservatives”.
It quotes one unnamed cardinal as lamenting that we have “a Holy Father who calls into question the truths of the Faith like never before”. Another prelate says there is “a climate of fear and uncertainty” in Rome.
A Spiegel reporter also travelled to Argentina to hear from sexual abuse survivors. Some claim that the Pope has not replied to their letters about sexual abuse in Buenos Aires.
Der Spiegel claimed that many of Francis’s associates had murky histories – and asked whether this was resulted from “naivety, chutzpah or lack of alternatives”.
When the Church was a field hospital
In 1863, Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, saw “the largest and bloodiest” battle of the American Civil War. One of the first buildings to open its doors to the wounded was the local Catholic Church, St Francis Xavier. At Aleteia, J-P Mauro summarised the historical accounts of the terrible scene.
One eyewitness wrote: “The sacred edifice was filled with suffering humanity. Groans and shrieks and cries of agony rent the air. In the little yard of the church stood the amputating tables and the surgeons at them, bedabbled with blood, were ceaseless in their work, whilst legs and arms, deftly cut off, were being thrown upon an increasing pile.”
✣✣ Meanwhile...
✣ Bono has heaped praise on Pope Francis, calling him an “extraordinary man for extraordinary times”. The U2 singer met the Pope at the Vatican to sign an agreement between his charity, ONE, and Scholas Occurentes, an educational charity supported by Francis.Bono said he raised the subject of the abuse crisis, telling the Pope that in Ireland “it looks as though the abusers are being more protected than the victims”. Francis was “aghast”, Bono said. “You could see the pain in his face.”
The next day Marie Collins, a prominent abuse survivor who had hoped to meet Pope Francis during a trip to Rome, asked what she needed to do to gain an audience. “Maybe I need to join a rock band,” she wrote.
✣ Pope Francis has joked that some people see him as a devil. Speaking at the launch of a book by papal photographer Grzegorz Gałązka, he reportedly said: “ was a saint, I am a devil.” Last month he joked that some saw him as “the devil’s paw” because of his stance on migrants.
✣ Eleven baby boys were named Lucifer in Britain last year. The name’s popularity may be down to a television show, the Netflix police drama Lucifer, which features the Devil as a nightclub owner in Los Angeles. (see Kipper Williams cartoon)
It’s a masterpiece ... in saying nothing with many words
Cardinal Joseph Zen on the Vatican-China agreement
Blog post
This moment is the hour of the laity
Archbishop Gómez at the 5th National Encuentro in Texas
CNS
The Christian life always involves the cross
Pope Francis’s homily in Kaunas, Lithuania
CNS
There is more to life than just me
Australian politician Bill Hayden, on converting to Catholicism aged 85
Catholic Leader
