Month: February 2016

Michael O’laughlin reports in www.cruxnow.com/ on a pastoral letter of Bishop Mitchell T. Rozanski of Springfield. The bishop is seeking forgiveness.
““There are many people hurting in our Catholic community from the pain caused by our past failings as a diocese, as well as the grievous actions of some who ministered in our church ……… there are others who have distanced themselves because they feel unwelcomed. The reasons here can vary, but key among them are race and cultural differences, a sense of gender inequality as well as sexual orientation,”
““I ask your forgiveness,”

Pádraig McCarthy shares his thoughts on the film Spotlight

Stan Mellett calls for a little thinking ‘outside the box’ when it comes to celebrating God’s mercy and forgiveness.
“How are we to celebrate the mystery and miracle of our forgiveness?” Stan argues that in the past we got it wrong. “God was a hard taskmaster; grudgingly would forgive but all the conditions had to be met. What a travesty of the Gospel! What an abuse of Church authority!”
“Any hope that the faithful and the unfaithful will once again wait in queue to whisper their ‘sins’ in a box, behind a curtain or in a private encounter, is, I think, remote.”
“Why hesitate to celebrate forgiveness for congregations in one liturgical celebration? “

Chris McDonnell suggests that the Washing of Feet on Holy Thursday is in danger of being seen as “seen as a liturgical dumb show with little meaning other than a mimed re-enactment of the gospel of John.”
“…we shouldn’t regard the Washing of Feet as an action related only to the liturgy of Holy Thursday, but rather as an action that can and should be shared on other occasions of prayer………. The Washing of Feet is an action of gentle kindness, an act of service and an intimate act of love …..We shape communities not by being the audience at events but by our actions in a shared act of love. Messy, untidy, with water spills during washing and the drying of feet with a towel afterwards, but that’s life, that’s how it is. .”

Robert Mickens casts a critical eye on some of the planned events for the Holy Year of Mercy.
To say he is not impressed might be to understate his view.
Looking at two events, the commissioning of ‘missionaries of mercy’ and the displaying of the bodies of Saint Leopold Mandić and Saint Padre Pio of Pietrelcina for public veneration he says “Both of them are aimed, fundamentally, at one thing — getting people to go back to confession, a practice most Catholics gave up a long, long time ago. …… this is one verdict of the “sensus fidelium” that it seems the pope does not want to acknowledge.”
The Holy Year of Mercy was announced “at a time when the world has never been more aware of its divisions or more uncertain about how to resolve its seemingly irresolvable conflicts and heal its apparently incurable wounds; when it has never been so incapable of achieving peace and bringing about reconciliation.
The Holy Year is the pope’s attempt to help the world — but even more so the church — find the solution to this impossible situation. And he is convinced that it will only be done when people allow themselves to be healed by God’s mercy and then, in turn, offer it to others; when they allow themselves to be forgiven and, in turn, begin forgiving others.”

Mickens states that most reasonable Catholics — Italians included — disagree with the need for such props and gimmicks the jubilee committee is using to promote the Holy Year.”

John Shea addresses an open and challenging letter to Cardinal Maradiaga, and to the other members of the Council of Cardinals, asking they consider again attitudes towards women in the church.
John Shea is an Augustinian theologian in Boston,