Category: The News

Sandro Magister leads up to the Synod by reviewing Pope Benedict’s particular emphases so far: his call for a more purified Church, as seen in the Burresi and Maciel cases; his thoughts on good and bad ecumenism; and his approach to relations with non-Christians, refraining from the dramatic gestures of his venerable predecessor; and a focus on priestly formation: Magister predicts a housecleaning of US seminary officials and a policy against candidates with “pronounced homosexual tendencies”.
If that word “pronounced” is really in the text, then the nuance has arrived, and we’re about to see a lot of the fuss over this document deflate.
(Via Vatican Watcher.)

This story makes me wince with embarrassment for the Church. Some boneheaded priest, aged 78, thought it would be a good idea to demonstrate pain during his homily for the kids’ Mass – by calling them up and pricking their hands with a pin. He was gravely mistaken.
To start with, kids already know what pain is, Father. There’s not a kid in the country who has never fallen off a bike and never tripped on a shoelace; landed hard on the ground, and bled, and experienced bodily pain. Kids don’t live their lives stored in padded boxes.
The priest’s conduct violated the parents’ authority and gave a bad example: he intentionally imposed bodily pain on someone else’s child — directly: that is, not as an unintended side effect to some legitimate action. After the horrible cases exposed in the past few years — about priests who used children’s bodies for their own cruel purposes — it is downright scandalous and therefore stupid for a priest to do a demonstration that comes anywhere near the category of physical abuse.
But Father says he’ll apologize at Mass next week — for not sterilizing the pin. As if the small health risk to which he exposed them were the main problem! As if sticking them with clean pins would have been just fine. Father needs to write on the board 100 times, “I will not stick pins in my parishioners.”

OK, folks, here’s something we folks at a distance can do: volunteer to help organize data on missing persons. Let’s get to it.
Update: Belay that, buckoes: the people running the database have to stop data entry for a few hours while they relocate to a bigger computer.
2nd Update: The service is back up Monday.

Katrina’s wake : A statue of the Virgin Mary sits on the porch of home destroyed by hurricane Katrina in Gulfport, Mississippi. (AFP/Robert Sullivan)
(via Yahoo News)

OK, pastors, it’s time for a Homeland Security alert. Make a note of the story Kelly cites: thieves broke into a parish in Lynn, MA, skipped the sacred vessels, located the tabernacle key, and took the Holy Eucharist. Since Lynn is next door to Salem, Mass., a magnet for neo-pagan kooks, one has to wonder if there’s some connection to any of the occultists.
But back to the security point: a lot of priests are pretty lax about storing the key, leaving it unsecured in a sacristy, and that’s just not going to cut it anymore.
Kelly and Dom are wondering why the theft isn’t being treated as a “hate crime”, though it sure fits the definition. One reason is that we Catholics don’t protest vigorously about bias crimes as smaller religious bodies often do. Perhaps the clergy are trained too well to avoid attracting public attention; this is a mistake. Protesting against theft and violation is an act of courage. I’d like to see our Abp. Sean speak publicly about this.
(I’ll include the story here in case it should expire off the newspaper’s site:)