✣Highlights from the week online
Verifying the bones of St Ambrose A forensic team has analysed the relics of 4th-century St Ambrose. Gregory DiPippo, writing for the New Liturgical Movement, reported that the relics were found to be authentic and that the findings appeared to confirm the accuracy of the oldest known portrait of the saint.“In a letter to his elder sister Marcellina (also a saint), Ambrose speaks of an intense pain which he experienced in his right shoulder, and difficulty of movement, caused by a fracture of the right clavicle which he suffered in his youth, and which never properly healed. The presence of this fracture is confirmed by the examination,” DiPippo wrote.
The fracture, he added, also accounts for “the notable asymmetry of his face”, seen in a mosaic portrait of Ambrose from the early 5th century, in the chapel of St Victor in Ciel d’Oro within the basilica in Milan where his relics are displayed.
Are ‘cry rooms’ a life-safer or a travesty?
“Let the little children come to me,’ Jesus said. But at the time, he was not in a church designed to amplify sound, whether an outraged squeal, a wind-up toy or the clatter of a book onto the floor,” wrote Elisabeth Deffner at ncregister.
“Of course, the invitation still stands today. But the fact is, parents’ beloved offspring may disturb others during the Mass. And those parents may face glares, aggrieved sighs or the humiliation of an overzealous usher’s command to take a squirmy toddler outside.” For some, a cry room – a small room where parents can take their unruly children – is “a life preserver”. For others it’s a “sort of purgatory … a penalty box”. Deffner quoted one headline: “A parish that segregates doesn’t deserve another generation of members.”
But the best solution may be to keep children quietly occupied during the service. “The Mass is the heart of our faith,” said Susan Arnall, mother of seven. “And need to learn it.”
Becoming a Catholic in a season of scandal
The Church may be beset with scandals, wrote Alex Beam in the Boston Globe. “Yet even now, some Americans are converting to Roman Catholicism. Why? If you are a Christian, there is one obvious reason: because it’s the Church founded by Jesus Christ. My denomination, the Anglican or Episcopal Church, traces its roots to King Henry VIII’s anti-papal pique in the 16th century. Martin Luther founded the Lutheran Church, Joseph Smith begat the Mormons, and so on. But there is only one Church founded by the guy whose name is on the door. Jesus’s words are right there on the dome of St Peter’s Basilica in Rome: ‘Upon this rock I will build my Church.’ The rock refers to the apostle Peter (Petrus, or rock), the first pope of the Roman Catholic Church.”
Beam spoke to several new Catholics. One, Wolfe Young, said that if you left the Church over the scandals, your faith “must not have been in Christ, but in a misplaced clericalism. I’m not joining the Catholic Church because I think the clergy is above reproach.” Its long history, he said, “helps keep it on the right path”.
✣Meanwhile...
✣ Pope Francis’s choice of pastoral staff has provoked a variety of reactions online. The staff, or papal ferula, was used in the opening Mass of the youth synod. Critics on Twitter compared it unfavourably to a stick or slingshot. One joked: “Gandalf called and he wants his staff back.”Another, Elizabeth Lev, asked: “Seriously? This is neither crosier nor cross. They couldn’t find anything else in the Vatican besides a coat rack?” David Gibson, director of Fordham University’s centre on religion and culture, defended the staff, saying it “reminds us of what a shepherd’s crook would really look like”. Francis was given the staff – which is carved from a log and appears to be a crucifix – during an audience with 70,000 young people. He was asked to use it for the synod. The papal ferula originated in the Middle Ages as a symbol of governance. It was routinely used in liturgies during Paul VI’s papacy.
✣ Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has cited the rapper Jay-Z at the synod. He quoted Pope Francis describing Christ as “eternally young” in his homily. This, he said, reminded him of the Jay-Z song Forever Young. He explained: “Jay-Z sang for the young – and for all of us – ‘I want to live forever and be forever young.’”
Most youth love the Church
Cardinal Nzapalainga of the Central African Republic
Vatican press conference
Come out of hiding and repent from this revolt
Cardinal Ouellet to Archbishop Viganò
Letter
She is ready and willing to die for Christ
Ashiq Bibi on her mother, Asia
Catholic News Service
Catholic values on social justice helped shape Labour values
Scottish Labour leader Richard Leonard
Scottish Catholic Observer
