Pope: Pray for those who have left the faith

Gee, it's like the Holy Father and Marian Press are on the same wavelength somehow!

The Holy Father has a specific prayer intention for July, the month that How Can You Still Be Catholic? is officially released.

Writes Crux:

In his prayer video for the month of July, Pope Francis has asked Christians to join him in praying for those who have strayed from the faith, providing hope to them through the witness of our joy and actions.

Yes, please pray with the Holy Father, especially through the daily Rosary for peace in the world and the Chaplet of Divine Mercy, for those who have left the faith, that they might return and become holy, great saints, and soon.

Pray for all of us who are in the Church, but who have grown old and weary in our sins, who need the grace and transformation of the Holy Spirit in order to bring life and light back into our lives and practice of the faith.

And pray for the living saints, that they may persevere to the end, not falling along the way, not beginning well and ending badly. For the battle rages around us here below, and we Christians are all too often wounded and fall, taking others down with us.

Pray, people of God! Spread the Good News, as the bishops have just called us to do and as Pope Francis has been summoning all the Mystical Body of Christ to do since the start of his pontificate.

Pray, and study the sources of our faith, and prepare yourselves to spread the Good News to all the world. Choose to answer the Holy Father's call to live a "missionary option" today, and enter into the Evangelical Catholicism described by George Weigel in his book of the same name, helping heal the wounds caused by the Bad Religion identified by Ross Douthat.

We have work to do. Now is not the time to give up in the face of the world's apparent indifference, or the sins and crimes of the clergy, or the apostasy of so many in the West. Now is the acceptable time to do again what St. Paul, and St. Peter, and so many great fathers and mothers in the faith have done across the ages, what we are all called to do, sometimes by words, but always by love--we are to share the Holy Spirit that is within us with the world, to speak the Word and be the face of the Father's mercy to all those in need, all those of us burning and dying in our sins. We are to work mercy and have faith, to live love and give ourselves generously for the salvation of all the world.

We are to love like Christ, and live like Mary, and serve like Joseph.

Now--now!--is the acceptable time.

Pope Francis, Papal History, and Real Faith

One response to those Catholics who find Francis a hard Pope to accept. Excerpts:

The Church isn’t meant to be analyzed at this kind granular level, at this kind of speed...

Hell, we had a pope dig up the rotting corpse of another pope, subject him to trial, find him guilty, strip him of his vestments, cut off the fingers he used for blessings, and cast the remains into the Tiber … and we’re still here.

And we always will be.

Although I usually refuse any label other than just plain “Catholic,” I am a political conservative and a dedicated Ratzingerian. The transition to Francis was jarring. His language can be imprecise and his pontificate feels like a bit of a high-wire act at times. I like my liturgy formal, my theology clear, and my popes in mozzettas.

That said, I can’t help but admire his approach. His analogy of the Church as a “field hospital” for souls is precisely right. He’s an appealing face for the Church. There are times to collect ourselves and focus on fundamentals, theology, and liturgical forms, and times to get down in the mud with sinners.

I’m not at all comfortable in the mud with sinners, taking risks, but that is my problem and my failing, not his.

Many of these Catholics are reacting exactly like the liberal Catholics they like to deride, trusting in the Magisterium of Me rather than in the Magisterium of the Church. They are doing to Francis what they never would have tolerated anyone to do to Benedict.

I’m not exactly sure what they think will happen because Francis reaches out to sinners or eschews some of the trappings of the office. The worst that can happen, has already happened.

In a history that begins with the murder of the Son of God and includes the execution of all of our founding leaders, Arianism and dozens of lesser heresies, schisms, the sacking of Rome, the shattering of Christendom in the Reformation, dueling popes, the Cadaver Synod, Alexander VI, the loss of the papal states, the abuse crisis, and any number of other terrible moments, the idea that we’re sailing into some new nightmare of the Church because Francis mutters “Who am I to judge?” about priests who have same-sex attraction is laughable...

Read the rest--he's got some great points about faith and the Apocalypse.

And of course we face the reality that almost every time a Papal comment is reported, it is usually misreported, distorted, turned inside out and upside down, losing a large chunk of itself in the process, and emerging on the front pages of newspapers and the headlines of cable news as a barely recognizable shadow of itself. It happened for John Paul II. It happened for Pope Benedict. It happens for Pope Francis. Recognize this, and always make sure to hunt down what the Pope said in its raw form.

The Nature and Mission of Catholic Universities: According to Pope Benedict

A review of what sounds like an interesting book brought up some interesting historical notes. Excerpts:

...[A] revolution took place in 1967 that changed Catholic higher education radically, but we hope not forever. It was known as the Land O’ Lakes Conference, for that is where a group of Catholic college presidents and academics undertook a revolution in Catholic education that hopefully will someday (soon) be rolled back.

The Land O’ Lakes document began this way:

“The Catholic university today must be a university in the full modern sense of the word, with a strong commitment to and concern for academic excellence. To perform its teaching and research functions effectively, the Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself. To say this is simply to assert that institutional autonomy and academic freedom are essential conditions of life and growth and indeed of survival for Catholic universities, as for all universities.”

Now compare this with Pope Benedict’s address to Catholic educators at Catholic University in Washington on April 17, 2008:

“It is the case that any appeal to the principle of academic freedom to justify positions that contradict the faith and the teaching of the Church would obstruct or even betray the university’s freedom and identity and mission: a mission at the heart of the Church’s munus docendi and not somehow autonomous or independent of it...”

I simply don't understand the basic premise of the Land O' Lakes document. "[T]he Catholic university must have a true autonomy and academic freedom in the face of authority of whatever kind, lay or clerical, external to the academic community itself." Authority of whatever kind? Really. And yet they don't complain about accrediting organizations, like the American Bar Association, the American Medical Association, or even the most basic accreditors of colleges. But perhaps they would argue that such organizations speak from within academia, and as such cannot conceivably violate academic freedom. They maintain academic standards, right? They make sure the unqualified are not admitted to the hallowed halls of academe. They, in fact, test for the right teaching of the professors at a university. They check them for academic orthodoxy.

Why is it a problem for the Church to regulate the teachings of her theologians again? 

More from the review:

...I found most interesting those talks in England, on the occasion of his trip to beatify Blessed John Henry Newman, with whom Pope Benedict had a special relation as a fellow theologian. In his homily, Pope Benedict used Blessed John Henry’s own words to describe the goal of Catholic university professors:

“I want a laity, not arrogant, not rash in speech, not disputatious — but men who know their religion, who enter into it, who know just where they stand, who know what they hold and what they do not, who know their creed so well that they can give an account of it, who know so much of history that they can defend it...”

Pope Francis, Catholic Church Reform, and the New Evangelization

Father Longenecker recommends a threesome, saying:

...Shaw shows the problem. Weigel expounds the solution from an intellectual perspective. Sherry Weddell takes the call for reform even further in her very important book, Forming Intentional Disciples–The Path to Knowing and Following Jesus...

I cannot recommend this serendipitous trilogy of books enough. The three books have come on the scene at precisely the right time for the church. Along with the election of Pope Francis, the Spirit has led these three authors to produce books very much needed in the life of the Church.

Buy copies. Study them. Share them with your friends. I have read all three. The first two provide the necessary theory. The third I will read and re-read and share with my staff in order to set our priorities and get to work...

A host of others have crossed my path recently, gathered into one list here.  But by all accounts, those three are significant.

Hahn Criticizes Historical Criticism

Here's an interesting criticism of historical criticism from Biblical scholar and theologian Dr. Scott Hahn.

Something tells me these might give some indications of what'll appear in Politicizing the Bible: The Roots of Historical Criticism and the Secularization of Scripture 1300-1700.

Some similar points raised here.

Pope Francis Approves of LCWR Reform

Hermeneutic of continuity, folks!  Excerpts:

...Archbishop Müller told Sr. Deacon that he “recently discussed the Doctrinal Assessment with Pope Francis, who reaffirmed the findings of the Assessment and the program of reform for this Conference of Major Superiors,” an April 15 statement from the congregation said.

“It is the sincere desire of the Holy See that this meeting may help to promote the integral witness of women Religious,” the communiqué stated, and this requires “a firm foundation of faith and Christian love, so as to preserve and strengthen it for the enrichment of the Church and society for generations to come.”

Since it was his first time meeting with the leadership of the group, Archbishop Müller thanked the sisters for their “great contribution” to the Church in the United States, “as seen particularly in the many schools, hospitals, and institutions of support for the poor” that have been founded and staffed by religious.

He also “emphasized that a Conference of Major Superiors, such as the LCWR, exists in order to promote common efforts among its member institutes as well as cooperation with the local Conference of Bishops and with individual Bishops.

“For this reason, such Conferences are constituted by and remain under the direction of the Holy See,” he stated, citing canons 708-709...

Why the reform? See here.

Pope Francis, Eight Cardinals, and Curial Reform

Interesting news out of Rome today.  Excerpts:

...This morning, the pontiff announced the establishment of a group of eight cardinals with the sweeping remit "to advise him in the government of the universal church and to study a plan for revising the Apostolic Constitution on the Roman Curia, 'Pastor Bonus.'"

Said to have been inspired by "a suggestion that emerged during the General Congregations preceding the Conclave," as relayed in the move's formal notice, the membership of the group is:

–Cardinal Giuseppe Bertello, president of the Governorate of Vatican City State;
–Cardinal Francisco Javier Errázuriz Ossa, archbishop emeritus of Santiago de Chile;
–Cardinal Oswald Gracias, archbishop of Bombay;
–Cardinal Reinhard Marx, archbishop of Munich and Friesing;
–Cardinal Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, archbishop of Kinshasa;
–Cardinal Sean Patrick O'Malley OFM Cap, archbishop of Boston;
–Cardinal George Pell, archbishop of Sydney;
–Cardinal Oscar Andrés Rodríguez Maradiaga, SDB, archbishop of Tegucigalpa, in the role of coordinator;
–and Bishop Marcello Semeraro of Albano, Italy, who'll serve as the group's secretary...

Put bluntly, by calling in figures who have clashed to a considerable, highly-public degree with the Establishment he's inherited, Francis is bringing the Curia's chickens home to roost...

Father Z has some interesting thoughts. Excerpts:

...First, the G8 (the group of 8 Cardinals) won’t meet until October. That means that not much will be done for about a year or so into this Pope’s pontificate. He has been Pope for about a month. The G8 meets for the first time over half a year from now. They won’t be leaping into action on the day after there meeting. They will have to ponder and consult and listen some more. They will have to draft proposals, which will need study and reflection and more consultation.

A lot can happen in a year of a pontificate. Consider, for example, what happened in Benedict XVI’s first year after the famous Regensburg Address. Benedict was set to launch a reform of the Curia. He had even started in motion the combination of offices into a new location, hoisted the head of the dicastery for inter-religious dialogue, etc. After Regensburg, that crawled to a halt. A lot can happen in a year of a pontificate. Even six months.

Second, when people start talking about structural reformation, they usually think about term limits. Term limits sweep out the undesirable chaff. That’s what we want in curial reform, right? Out with the chaff? The problem with term limits is that the wheat is also term limited. In the Roman Curia clerics are generally given 5 year appointments. They are appointed ad quinquennium, with possibility of renewal…or not. Fine. The problem with giving pretty much everyone the heave-ho after 5 years is that you lose both institutional memory and you lose competence. If takes about 5 years to learn some of these complicated positions well. Moreover, it takes a while to get language skill up to speed. If anyone is under the illusion that just because a man studied in Rome he speaks Italian well (much less writes it well), well… get over that. They live and study and work in their own little national ghettos where they don’t have to speak or write in Italian. In most of the universities, profs accept exams and papers in the major languages, since Latin is all but lost. Furthermore, and this is not a secret, bishops are not always eager to let their brightest and best go: they are needed in the diocese. There is, therefore, a fairly small pool of men who can fill the jobs competently and they need time to get up to speed. In addition, if they are swept out every few years, it may be hard to motivate them.

Some might accuse me of defending “careerism”, which they will identify as a root of problems in the Curia. Term limits, however, might not produce the desired results: a lean but still competent, well-motivated Curia...

60 Minutes, the LCWR, and Necessary Church Reform

So 60 Minutes ran a piece on the Vatican's doctrinal investigation of the LCWR.  GetReligion was not amused.  Excerpts:

CBS released this clip last week, previewing the Sunday 60 Minutes piece. Talk about hard-hitting! Talk about the opposite of obsequious!

Oh wait. It looked horrific.

Apparently it was.  After it ran on Sunday, one person tweeted:

“60 minutes” tonight marked the election of Pope Francis with an outrageously slanted Bob Simon piece hammering the Church

Another:

aaaand first up on 60 Minutes: Will Pope Francis continue using the same office as the Inquisition to persecute American nuns?

yeah, reporting is one thing. Glowing as you question the subject is quite another.

You can watch the whole thing and make your own judgment, but Godbeat veteran Jeffrey Weiss said the piece failed on a number of counts...

Why the investigation?  Here're some of the reasons I perceived.  John Allen had some good points about the investigation.  There are reasons laid out in the Vatican's own document on the visitation.  Excerpts:

...The decision of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) to undertake a doctrinal Assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) was communicated to the LCWR Presidency during their meeting with Cardinal William Levada in Rome on April 8, 2008. At that meeting, three major areas of concern were given as motivating the CDF’s decision to initiate the Assessment:

Addresses at the LCWR Assemblies.
Addresses given during LCWR annual Assemblies manifest problematic statements and serious theological, even doctrinal errors. The Cardinal offered as an example specific passages of Sr. Laurie Brink’s address about some Religious “moving beyond the Church” or even beyond Jesus. This is a challenge not only to core Catholic beliefs; such a rejection of faith is also a serious source of scandal and is incompatible with religious life. Such unacceptable positions routinely go unchallenged by the LCWR, which should provide resources for member Congregations to foster an ecclesial vision of religious life, thus helping to correct an erroneous vision of the Catholic faith as an important exercise of charity. Some might see in Sr. Brink’s analysis a phenomenological snapshot of religious life today. But Pastors of the Church should also see in it a cry for help.

Policies of Corporate Dissent
The Cardinal spoke of this issue in reference to letters the CDF received from “Leadership Teams” of various Congregations, among them LCWR Officers, protesting the Holy See’s actions regarding the question of women’s ordination and of a correct pastoral approach to ministry to homosexual persons, e.g. letters about New Ways Ministry’s conferences. The terms of the letters suggest that these sisters collectively take a position not in agreement with the Church’s teaching on human sexuality. It is a serious matter when these Leadership Teams are not providing effective leadership and example to their communities, but place themselves outside the Church’s teaching.

Radical Feminism
The Cardinal noted a prevalence of certain radical feminist themes incompatible with the Catholic faith in some of the programs and presentations sponsored by the LCWR, including theological interpretations that risk distorting faith in Jesus and his loving Father who sent his Son for the salvation of the world. Moreover, some commentaries on “patriarchy” distort the way in which Jesus has structured sacramental life in the Church; others even undermine the revealed doctrines of the Holy Trinity, the divinity of Christ, and the inspiration of Sacred Scripture...

What does radical feminism in the Catholic Church and women's religious orders look like?  From the side of someone who may well be a supporter or at least sympathetic to this approach, there's a classic overview from Thomas Rausch, SJ's Catholicism in the Third Millennium:

...Feminist spirituality is a relatively new field that has grown out of the struggle of women for equality in both society and Church.  It is a particular expression of liberation theology.  Like feminist theology (for it is often difficult to separate theology and spirituality) feminist spirituality covers a broad spectrum of positions and persons in the contemporary Catholic Church.  Some feminist theologians have moved explicitly beyond the Christian tradition; their theological interests focus on the pre-Christian European worship of the Goddess, a nature religion also known as Wicca.  Mary Daly is among those feminists who identify themselves as post-Christian.  Others, such as Rosemary Radford Ruether and Elisabeth Schussler-Fiorenza, have challenged the tradition in a radical way from within.  What is common to most feminist theologians is a concern to bring the often neglected experience of women into the theological enterprise.

Feminist spirituality seeks to articulate a vision of the spiritual life that can embrace the experience of women, particularly their experience of oppression; it seeks to address their particular needs and help them reappropriate their own spiritual power. Consciousness raising is a first step toward a genuine feminist spiritual vision. Women who have so often been defined in terms of their sexual and reproductive functions insist that their value and personal possibilities cannot be deftermined by biology. This feminist spirituality offers women an alternative vision that includes a critique of those forces and movements that have oppressed women and alienated them from themselves. Patriarchy, the structuring of society and culture in terms of male interests and power, and hierarchy, organizing society and Church in terms of higher and lower status, are both rejected. Feminist spirituality emphasizes equality, inclusivity, and mutuality. It prefers the discussion to the lecture, the square to the circle.

Feminist spirituality differs from much of traditional spirituality in its nondualistic approach to all of reality; it seeks to overcome the split between body and spirit, between spirituality and sexuality, transcendence and immanence, reason and feeling, the sacred and the secular, between this world and the next. It seeks to read the Gospel in such a way that women will be empowered; thus it is uncomfortable with the emphasis in classical theology on losing the self by putting others first, seeing here a reinforcement of the passivity and submission to which so many women have been conditioned by a patriarchal culture and Church. Displacing one's own ego is fine if one's temptation is to pride, but for many women the real task of a genuine conversion is to be more assertive, to affirm their own value, and come to a genuine love of self.

Sandra M. Schneiders lists the following as major characteristics of feminist spirituality: First, it must be rooted in women's experience. Thus there is generally an emphasis on a personal sharing of stories as a way of recovering what has been repressed and of raising consciousness. Second, it celebrates those aspects of bodiliness, such as menstruation and childbirth, that religion has been silent about. They are life-giving, not shameful. Third, it is concerned with nonhuman nature, with its sense of our organic relationship with the universe; its vision is ecologically sensitive. Fourth, it emphasizes rituals that are inclusive rather than hierarchical, joyful and participative rather than unemotional and dominative. Feminist spirituality is concerned for the renewal of Church ministry, liturgy, organization, and community. Finally, feminist spirituality sees an intrinsic relationship between personal growth and social justice. From the perspective of feminist spirituality, the personal is always political...--Thomas Rausch, Catholicism in the Third Millenium, 2nd Edition, (Michael Glazier Books, 2003), pg. 184-186.

From critics of the approach, one can read Ungodly Rage: The Hidden Face of Catholic Feminism, The Feminist Question: Feminist Theology in the Light of Christian Tradition, Sisters in Crisis: The Tragic Unraveling of Women's Religious Communities, Sisters in Crisis Revisited: From Unraveling to Reform and Renewal, and Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church.

Why is this vision of feminist spirituality described by Rausch a problem?  Well, if you're post-Christian and outside the Church, then you're certainly no longer Catholic or Christian.  And the LCWR, by a past president's own admission, contains some member congregations who have gone precisely that far.

...During this era of crisis and decline, some Catholic religious orders have chosen to enter a time of “sojourning” that involves “moving beyond the church, even beyond Jesus,” Sinsinawa Dominican Sister Laurie Brink told a 2007 national gathering of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious.

“Religious titles, institutional limitations, ecclesiastical authorities no longer fit this congregation, which in most respects is Post-Christian,” added Brink, a former journalist who is a biblical studies professor at Chicago’s Catholic Theological Union. For these women, the “Jesus narrative is not the only or the most important narrative. … They still hold up and reverence the values of the Gospel, but they also recognize that these same values are not solely the property of Christianity. Buddhism, Native American spirituality, Judaism, Islam and others hold similar tenets for right behavior within the community, right relationship with the earth and right relationship with the Divine.”...

If you're practicing Wicca, you're violating the Church's ban on magic and the New Age.  If you reject all forms of hierarchy, then you will inevitably be at war with the Church from within, since it is inherently hierarchical according to the teaching of Vatican II.  If you're an offshoot of liberation theology, you need to take account of the Church's teaching on liberation theology.  If you differ from traditional Catholic spirituality, then you're rejecting the teaching of Doctor of the Church St. Teresa of Avila, Doctor of the Church St. Hildegard of Bingen, Doctor of the Church St. Catherine of Siena, Doctor of the Church St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and a whole host of other women mystics and saints.  If you choose to believe that all that is personal must be political, then you have accepted the via moderna in its entirety which will inevitably see all exercises of authority as unwonted impositions of power on the will of another, never as the right exercise of the functions of the members of the body of Christ.  If you truly believe that traditional spirituality is wrong when it supposedly, somehow rejects bodiliness and simultaneously hold that true liberation for women comes from refusing to be defined by biology in any way at all, you're not only incoherent, but also ignoring the true richness of the Church's teaching on the theology of the body.  If you refuse to be willing to lose your life in order to save it (Luke 9:24; Matthew 16:25; Luke 17:33; Mark 8:35; Matthew 10:39; John 12:25), then you're repudiating the eternal dynamic of gift at the heart of the Trinity into which we are all invited, choosing to eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil rather than the tree of life, choosing power over paradise (as though choosing tradition and deification somehow meant women were disempowered!  Mary, she of the Magnificat, is Queen of heaven and earth.).  If you steadfastly believe that the Catholic Church can and should ordain women, then you're steadfastly in violation of the clear and irreformable teaching of the ordinary magisterium.

Does this mean there is no room in Catholicism for feminism?  Not at all.  See the following for a sampling of some celebrations of Catholic womanhood in the different walks of life:

• Discovering the Feminine Genius: Every Woman's Journey (Theology of the Body)
• Blessed, Beautiful and Bodacious: Celebrating the Gift of Catholic Womanhood
• The Authentic Catholic Woman
• Rooted in Love: Our Calling as Catholic Women
• Women, Sex, and the Church: A Case for Catholic Teaching
• Mulieris Dignitatem:  On the Vocation of Women
• Redemptoris Mater: On the Blessed Virgin Mary in the Life of the Pilgrim Church
• Holy Women
• My Sisters the Saints: A Spiritual Memoir
  
• Breaking Through: Catholic Women Speak for Themselves
• Extreme Makeover: Women Transformed by Christ, Not Conformed to the Culture
• Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter
• Sexual Authenticity: An Intimate Reflection on Homosexuality and Catholicism
• The Catholic Girl's Survival Guide for the Single Years: The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Sane and Happy While Waiting for Mr. Right
• Men And Women Are From Eden: A Study Guide to John Paul II's Theology of the Body
• Men, Women and the Mystery of Love: Practical Insights from John Paul II's Love and Responsibility
• The Privilege of Being a Woman
• Life-Giving Love : Embracing God's Beautiful Design for Marriage
• Prodigal Daughters: Catholic Women Come Home to the Church

There is plenty of room within the Church for a tremendous celebration of women.  There is room in the Church for women to take on many more roles, and to continue to work wonders in the roles they currently occupy.  But there is not room in the Church for a feminist theology/spirituality which privileges power over love.

To hold the form of feminist theology outlined by Rausch is to place oneself in the permanent role of dissatisfied Catholic, permanently seeking to alter the fundamental structure of the Church from within by force to conform it to the demands of your ideology.  The faith does not have primacy in your life, nor does Christ, but rather power, challenging the faith rather than receiving it as that which has been handed on, and asserting your own all rightness over against the standards of the Catholic Church and her faith.  This analysis is supported by Catholic women religious.  Excerpts:

Physicians who are also Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma are criticizing the Leadership Conference of Women Religious and its defenders for using an impoverished “language of politics” instead of “the language of faith” in the dialogue with the Catholic hierarchy.

“There is no basis for authentic dialogue between these two languages. The language of faith is rooted in Jesus Christ, His life and His mission, as well as the magisterial teaching of the Church,” said the physician-sisters’ statement, which was issued after a June 2 meeting on the contributions of religious women in the healing ministry of the Catholic Church.

“The language of politics arises from the social marketplace,” they said. “The Sisters who use political language in their responses to the magisterial Church reflect the poverty of their education and formation in the faith.”...

the Religious Sisters of Mercy of Alma’s broader statement. It said that a religious community’s charism is given to “enrich the Church” and the Catholic hierarchy must determine its authenticity. A woman religious participates in this charism and “cannot separate her work from the Church.”

The sisters praised “the generosity and service” of the religious women who preceded them and foresaw “great hope” for the future of religious life in the Church.

They said that this hope rests in remaining within “the deposit of faith and the hierarchical structure of the Church.”

“We cannot separate ourselves from sacred tradition or claim to advance beyond the Church.”

The sisters’ June 2 meeting also addressed statements from the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, various news agencies and other organizations. The Sisters of Mercy said these have created “confusion, polarization, and false representations about the beliefs, activities, and priorities of a significant number of women religious in the United States...”

Bottom line: Archbishop Sartain has been given a necessary and important task for the renewal of religious orders for women within Catholicism.  There are a number of serious doctrinal problems extant within the LCWR's leadership and, by Sister Laurie Brink's own account, within the member congregations.  Pray for Abp. Sartain and a graced reform for the LCWR.

Pope Yet To Re-Appoint Curia

From Rocco Palmo. Excerpts:

...Full as the day's been, however, one key order of business was notably left undone. 

As the heads of the dicasteries of the Roman Curia all lost their posts at the sede vacante, the group of prefects and presidents must be reconfirmed by the new pontiff for the governance of the church to be resumed.

While past Popes have traditionally made the pro forma act within 24 hours of their election, this time it remains conspicuous by its absence. (The officials may subsequently be replaced at any time, as they serve at the pleasure of the pontiff.)

Then again, considering the in-house storm that preceded the Conclave, perhaps there's an explanation for the delay – namely, that Francis' sudden turn-up at the check-in counter won't be the biggest of his early surprises...

It's kind of an answer to this rather astonishing article.

Update:  And, to judge by this interview with Cardinal Marc Ouellet, the new Holy Father has a plan.  Excerpts:

...So why is he beaming? Because he is not pope – he’s relieved he did not get the big job – and because the man who beat him, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Buenos Aires, now Pope Francis, told him something Friday, when he greeted all 208 cardinals, that made him think theirs would be strong partnership.

“We all went to greet him personally,” Cardinal Ouellet, 67, said in an interview with The Globe and Mail. “I was near the end of the line and I thought I would just greet him – 10 seconds – but he stopped me and he spoke to me for a minute or two, because he had something to ask me, very concrete and related to my dicastery [a department of the Roman Curia overseeing the selection of bishops] and I said, ‘Okay, I will do it.’ I did not expect that and I was happy. I took it as a vote of confidence.”

What did the pope offer? Cardinal Ouellet will not say, though his smile suggests that he might thrive under Pope Francis, even if so many others will not as the Vatican hierarchy faces its inevitable shakeup...

Will Francis be the pope to reform the scandal-prone Curia?
I think so. He is a man of governance. What he asked me [this morning] made me think this man knows where he goes and there is a determination. We need a man who is really attentive to people but able to make a clear decision. If it is necessary to change personnel, he will do it. I am talking in general. I think he has the temper to reform the governance of the church...

Update II:  He's reappointed the Curia "for now."  Excerpt:

...Curia Officials Reappointed — But Only “Temporarily”

Another important decision was announced today. Pope Francis reconfirmed all the heads of the Vatican Curia offices. But he did so only “donec aliter provideatur” (“until otherwise it may be provided” or “until other decisions are taken” or, perhaps most simply, “just for now”).

And in taking this decision, Francis was following tradition.

All new Popes restore their curial officials a day or two after their election, so that the Curia, which is “zeroed out” at the departure of one Pope, can be restored to a functioning body.

So, he followed tradition — but the phrasing of the decision means that, sometime soon, he is leaving the door still open to radical personnel changes in the Curia. It is just that he has not yet had time to take those decisions.

If he does not take such decisions within a few weeks, or months, that would suggest there is not going to be a “clean sweep” of the Curia.
So we do not yet know what Francis will do regarding the Curia.

Here is the official announcement in Italian, with the words “donec aliter provideatur” bold-faced:

COMUNICATO
Il Santo Padre Francesco ha espresso la volontà che i Capi e i Membri dei Dicasteri della Curia Romana, come pure i Segretari, nonché il Presidente della Pontificia Commissione dello Stato della Città del Vaticano, proseguano, provvisoriamente, nei rispettivi incarichi donec aliter provideatur.

Il Santo Padre desidera, infatti, riservarsi un certo tempo per la riflessione, la preghiera e il dialogo, prima di qualunque nomina o conferma definitiva.

Bollettino Ufficiale Santa Sede (16 marzo 2013)

Pope Francis: Trads Are Panicking (And So Is The Left)

Every time the media calls Pope Francis a traditionalist, remind yourself that the media has likely never met a traditionalist.  These are traditionalists.  And I'd love to know what exactly causes them to fear and despise Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, one of the lead authors of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and related materials.  I mean, I grant the existence of huge problems in the way Vatican II has been interpreted and implemented throughout the world, but to be true to the documents is not in any way to be in breach of the tradition of the Church.  For pete's sake, it was an ecumenical council, convened by the Holy Fathers John XXIII and Paul VI, gathering most of the bishops throughout the world, and teaching with the full force of their collective authority.  Vatican II is authoritative, or no council of the Church is authoritative.

Here's a healthy response from a self-described traditionalist (who's also, by all accounts, written some pretty good books), calling his fellow trads to be proper traditionalists and honor, love, and serve the pope by prayer and obedience.

A beautiful response from Father Z.

A very interesting piece of news from George Weigel.  Excerpts:

...The 2005 runner-up takes the checkered flag in 2013? Well, not really. Cardinal Bergoglio was used in 2005; he knows precisely who used him and why; and while he is a man of the Gospel who is not looking to settle scores, he is also a man of prudence who knows who his friends, and who his enemies, are. Here’s the story:

In April 2005, the progressive party (which was a real party then) came to Rome after the death of John Paul II thinking it had the wind at its back and clear sailing ahead — only to find that the Ratzinger-for-pope party was well-organized; that Ratzinger had made a very positive impression by the way he had run the General Congregations of cardinals after John Paul II’s death; that he had deep support from throughout the Third World because of the courtesy with which he had treated visiting Third World bishops on their quinquennial visits to Rome over the past 20 years; and that, after his brilliant homily at John Paul’s funeral Mass, he was indisputably the frontrunner for the papacy.

Confronted with this reality, the progressives panicked. Their first blocking move against Ratzinger was to try to run the aged Carlo Maria Cardinal Martini, S.J., emeritus archbishop of Milan, who was already ill with Parkinson’s disease and had retired to the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Jerusalem. The idea was not to elect Martini pope; it was to stop the Ratzinger surge. Then, when Ratzinger blew past Martini with almost 50 percent of the vote on what was assumed to be the “courtesy” first ballot (where some votes are cast as gestures of friendship, esteem, etc.), and subsequently went over 50 percent the following morning, the panic intensified. Martini was summarily abandoned (or may have told his supporters to forget it). The progressives then tried to advance Cardinal Bergoglio — who was very much part of the pro-Ratzinger coalition; who embodied “dynamic orthodoxy,” just like John Paul II and Joseph Ratzinger; who had been persecuted by his more theologically and politically left-leaning Jesuit brethren after his term as Jesuit provincial in Argentina (they exiled him to northern Argentina, where he taught high-school chemistry until rescued by John Paul II and eventually made archbishop of Buenos Aires); and who was doubtless appalled by the whole exercise on his putative behalf.

It was a last-ditch blocking move, perhaps constructed around the idea that a Third World candidate like Bergoglio would peel off votes from Ratzinger. In any event, it was a complete misreading of the 2005 conclave’s dynamics and a cynical use of Bergoglio, who would almost certainly have been abandoned had the stratagem worked — and it failed miserably.

Thus it may be safely assumed that the coalition that quickly solidified and swiftly elected Jorge Mario Bergoglio as pope in 2013 had little or nothing to do with the eminent cabal that tried to use him in 2005. Pope Francis was elected for who he is, not for taking the silver medal eight years ago.

The first Jesuit pope? Well, yes, in a manner of speaking. Bergoglio is an old-school Jesuit, formed by classic Ignatian spirituality and deeply committed to an intelligent, sophisticated appropriation and proclamation of the full symphony of Catholic truth — qualities not notable for their prevalence among members of the Society of Jesus in the early 21st century. I suspect there were not all that many champagne corks flying last night in those Jesuit residences throughout the world where the Catholic Revolution That Never Was is still regarded as the ecclesiastical holy grail. For the shrewder of the new pope’s Jesuit brothers know full well that that dream was just dealt another severe blow. And they perhaps fear that this pope, knowing the Society of Jesus and its contemporary confusions and corruptions as he does, just might take in hand the reform of the Jesuits that was one of the signal failures of the pontificate of John Paul II...

And more from another commentator.  Excerpts:

...I first met him many years ago in Buenos Aires in 1993, less than a year after his predecessor, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, rescued him from the ecclesiastic exile he was confined to by his congregation, the Jesuits, after he dared to try to reform them while being their provincial.

Cardinal Quarracino, who was fond of then-Bishop Bergoglio’s humble origin, keen intellect and down-to-earth nature, made him his coadjutor in 1997.
Bishop Bergoglio struck me as a man whose humility and simplicity could not hide a dry, sometimes ferocious sense of humor, and a sharp, quick intelligence.

Most importantly, Bishop Bergoglio was as clearly at ease in pastoral environments as he was almost mortified with any pomp and circumstance.
Therefore, it was admirable but not surprising when, after being installed as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he traded the magnificent episcopal palace for a small apartment in a downtown parish and kept his habit of taking the bus or the subway to move about the city, much to the surprise and admiration of his flock.

In February of 2001, when he was made a cardinal by Pope John Paul II, Cardinal Bergoglio requested that the large number of Argentinean Catholics who wanted to join him at the consistory in Rome instead use the money they were planning to spend on the trip to help the poor. As a consequence, Cardinal Bergoglio’s delegation at the consistory was one of the smallest ones, totally at odds with the size and relevance of Buenos Aires.

Also, unlike his recent predecessors, Pope Francis decided not to wear the pontifical red cape when he appeared for the first time in the loggia. He was instead in plain white, just like St. Pius V, the Dominican Pope who did not want to trade his order’s white robe, thus starting the tradition of the Papal white.

Despite being the first Jesuit to sit at the chair of Peter, the Pope has chosen the never-before used name of the beloved saint of Assisi, who led the reform of the Church in his time by calling for a faithful return to simplicity and holiness.

Rest assured, Pope Francis is bringing interesting times for the Church...

The left and the right are freaking out at Francis's election?  That's a very good sign.  And then there's this signal from the new Holy Father himself.  Excerpts:

...The very first thing Francis does is go to St Mary Major to pray at the tomb of Pius V.

So who was Pope St Pius V? He was a reforming pope who reigned from 1566- 1572. He cleaned up the curia, excommunicated heretical bishops, cleaned up the immorality in the church and swept the church clean– paving the way for the great surge in the church we call the Counter Reformation. He also excommunicated the tyrant Elizabeth I of England and formed the Holy League–a confederation of Catholic armies which eventually defeated the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Lepanto. Pius V also instituted the Feast of Our Lady of Victories (nor the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary).

St Francis lived during a time of corruption, wealth and power in the church. He heard Christ say to him, “re-build my church.” Will Pope Francis also hear the call from Christ to “re-build my church” and not only be a new Francis but a new Pius V? I think we will see some high drama in the months to come. Certainly if his reputation in his native Argentina is anything to go by, we may well see a Pope who is uncompromising in his proclamation of the fullness of the Catholic faith. He stood up against an aggressive secular authority when they tried to impose same sex marriage and abortion. He also stood up to his clergy and led by example with an austere life committed fully to the gospel. He also stood up against the clergy who wanted to get involved in politics. He has said ambition and power seeking are a sin...

And from the wonderful Simcha Fischer, the reaction of the Catholic geekchick. Links in the original.  Excerpts:

...let me just pass along this Chesterton quote (via, of course, Mark Shea):

If you hear a thing being accused of being too tall and too short, too red and too green, too bad in one way and too bad also in the opposite way, then you may be sure that it is very good....

After he was done meeting the people at St. Peter's Square yesterday, he took the bus home. When he was already pope. And then this morning, he snuck out to fulfill a promise to pray at Maria Maggiore, where Ignatius of Loyola said his first Mass. HA. This kills me, that he just goes. How did this happen? Did he insist and kick up a fuss until they let him do it his way, or did he just slip away? Talk about Vatileaks! Whoops, there goes the Pope again! He moves pretty fast for a guy with one lung.

This going where he wants to go to do what he needs to do is clearly not a fluke, either. Here, from a pre-conclave profile, is what he says about his approach, in a broader sense:

It is true that going out onto the street implies the risk of accidents happening, as they would to any ordinary man or woman. But if the Church stays wrapped up in itself, it will age. And if I had to choose between a wounded Church that goes out onto the streets and a sick withdrawn Church, I would definitely choose the first one...

Hey, if you're interested in pawing through his disastrous reactions or shameful non-reactions to your favorite historical document, or if suddenly you're willing to pretend you're an instant expert on the Dirty War and if you had been Archbishop of Argentina, then this is how you would have done, then be my guest. I, for one, am going to bask in the joy and excitement of getting to know our new pope. We've got plenty of time ahead of us, and if these first days are any indication, he is going to keep us on our toes. Viva il Papa!

It's a very good day today.

More:

• Pope Francis' first 24 hours: Doing it his way
• Pope Francis Visits Basilica of Saint Mary Major in Rome
• The First Pope Named Francis 
• Jorge Mario Bergoglio is the new Pope of the Catholic Church: Francis

Farewell, Pope Benedict!

Want to hear an interview with him in English? This was done by Raymond Arroyo while Pope John Paul II was still alive.

God the Father, have mercy on us.
Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.
Holy Spirit, have mercy on us.
Triune God, have mercy on us.

Mary, Mother of the Church, pray for us.
St. Joseph, Patron of the Church, pray for us.
St. Peter, rock on which the Church was founded, pray for us.
St. Paul, apostle to the Gentiles, pray for us.
All you holy Apostles and Evangelists, pray for us.

St. Benedict of Nursia, patron of Europe, pray for us.
St. Boniface, apostle to the Germans, pray for us.
St. Peter Canisius, great catechist, pray for us.
St. Robert Bellarmine, curial cardinal, pray for us.

Bl. John Paul II, predecessor to Benedict, pray for us.
Bl. John XXIII, convoker of Vatican II, pray for us.
St. Pius X, patron of pilgrims, pray for us.
All you holy popes and patriarchs, pray for us.

That we may have the pope of your choosing, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the cardinals may be attentive and open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the universal church be guided, guarded, and suffused with divine life throughout this transition period, Lord, hear our prayer.
That the successor to Benedict be a man after God's own heart, Lord, hear our prayer.

Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy.

The Catholic Agenda: A New Age of the Holy Spirit

Pope Benedict's challenge to the rising generations today. Excerpts:

“...You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you”. These words of the Risen Lord have a special meaning for those young people who will be confirmed, sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit, at today’s Mass. But they are also addressed to each of us – to all those who have received the Spirit’s gift of reconciliation and new life at Baptism, who have welcomed him into their hearts as their helper and guide at Confirmation, and who daily grow in his gifts of grace through the Holy Eucharist. At each Mass, in fact, the Holy Spirit descends anew, invoked by the solemn prayer of the Church, not only to transform our gifts of bread and wine into the Lord’s body and blood, but also to transform our lives, to make us, in his power, “one body, one spirit in Christ”.

But what is this “power” of the Holy Spirit? It is the power of God’s life! It is the power of the same Spirit who hovered over the waters at the dawn of creation and who, in the fullness of time, raised Jesus from the dead. It is the power which points us, and our world, towards the coming of the Kingdom of God. In today’s Gospel, Jesus proclaims that a new age has begun, in which the Holy Spirit will be poured out upon all humanity (cf. Lk 4:21). He himself, conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin May, came among us to bring us that Spirit. As the source of our new life in Christ, the Holy Spirit is also, in a very real way, the soul of the Church, the love which binds us to the Lord and one another, and the light which opens our eyes to see all around us the wonders of God’s grace...

The power of the Holy Spirit does not only enlighten and console us. It also points us to the future, to the coming of God’s Kingdom. What a magnificent vision of a humanity redeemed and renewed we see in the new age promised by today’s Gospel! Saint Luke tells us that Jesus Christ is the fulfilment of all God’s promises, the Messiah who fully possesses the Holy Spirit in order to bestow that gift upon all mankind. The outpouring of Christ’s Spirit upon humanity is a pledge of hope and deliverance from everything that impoverishes us. It gives the blind new sight; it sets the downtrodden free, and it creates unity in and through diversity (cf. Lk 4:18-19; Is 61:1-2). This power can create a new world: it can “renew the face of the earth” (cf. Ps 104:30)!...

Empowered by the Spirit, and drawing upon faith’s rich vision, a new generation of Christians is being called to help build a world in which God’s gift of life is welcomed, respected, and cherished—not rejected, feared as a threat, and destroyed. A new age in which love is not greedy or self-seeking, but pure, faithful, and genuinely free, open to others, respectful of their dignity, seeking their good, radiating joy and beauty. A new age in which hope liberates us from the shallowness, apathy, and self-absorption that deaden our souls and poison our relationships. Dear young friends, the Lord is asking you to be prophets of this new age, messengers of his love, drawing people to the Father, and building a future of hope for all humanity...--Pope Benedict XVI, 2008 World Youth Day homily

We are called to a new evangelization aimed at ushering in a culture of life which will lead to the rise of the civilization of love.  How?  Answering the universal call to holiness, which means living life in the Holy Spirit--partaking of the divine nature and becoming sons and daughters of God in Christ.  All of that agenda, by the way, is laid out in a supremely readable fashion in The One Thing Is Three: How the Most Holy Trinity Explains Everything.

When I came to you, brothers, proclaiming the mystery of God, I did not come with sublimity of words or of wisdom.  For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.  I came to you in weakness and fear and much trembling, and my message and my proclamation were not with persuasive (words of) wisdom, but with a demonstration of spirit and power, so that your faith might rest not on human wisdom but on the power of God.--1 Corinthians 2:1-5

Laborem Exercens, Sollicitudo Rei Socialis, Centesimus Annus: The Social Doctrine of Blessed Pope John Paul II

From the invaluable Compendium of the Social Doctrine of the Church. Excerpts:

...Ninety years after Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II devoted the Encyclical Laborem Exercens [187] to work, the fundamental good of the human person, the primary element of economic activity and the key to the entire social question. Laborem Exercens outlines a spirituality and ethic of work in the context of a profound theological and philosophical reflection. Work must not be understood only in the objective and material sense, but one must keep in mind its subjective dimension, insofar as it is always an expression of the person. Besides being a decisive paradigm for social life, work has all the dignity of being a context in which the person's natural and supernatural vocation must find fulfilment.

With the Encyclical Sollicitudo Rei Socialis[188], Pope John Paul II commemorates the twentieth anniversary of Populorum Progressio and deals once more with the theme of development along two fundamental lines: “on one hand, the dramatic situation of the modern world, under the aspect of the failed development of the Third World, and on the other, the meaning of, conditions and requirements for a development worthy of man”[189]. The Encyclical presents differences between progress and development, and insists that “true development cannot be limited to the multiplication of goods and service — to what one possesses — but must contribute to the fullness of the ‘being' of man. In this way the moral nature of real development is meant to be shown clearly”[190]. Pope John Paul II, alluding to the motto of the pontificate of Pope Pius XII, “opus iustitiae pax” (peace is the fruit of justice), comments: “Today, one could say, with the same exactness and the same power of biblical inspiration (cf. Is 32:17; Jas 3:18), opus solidaritatis pax (peace is the fruit of solidarity)”[191].

On the hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum, Pope John Paul II promulgates his third social encyclical, Centesimus Annus[192], whence emerges the doctrinal continuity of a hundred years of the Church's social Magisterium. Taking up anew one of the fundamental principles of the Christian view of social and political organization, which had been the central theme of the previous Encyclical, the Pope writes: “What we nowadays call the principle of solidarity ... is frequently stated by Pope Leo XIII, who uses the term ‘friendship' ... Pope Pius XI refers to it with the equally meaningful term ‘social charity'. Pope Paul VI, expanding the concept to cover the many modern aspects of the social question, speaks of a ‘civilization of love”'[193]. Pope John Paul II demonstrates how the Church's social teaching moves along the axis of reciprocity between God and man: recognizing God in every person and every person in God is the condition of authentic human development. The articulate and in-depth analysis of the “new things”, and particularly of the great breakthrough of 1989 with the collapse of the Soviet system, shows appreciation for democracy and the free economy, in the context of an indispensable solidarity.

Other tallies of the social encyclicals include Evangelium Vitae on this list.