 |
|
There are two major news stories going on right now: the election and the pandemic.
We have even reached a point where we don’t have to be specific about which election and which pandemic we are talking about. All we need is “the”.
Part of the goal of an editorial is to focus on some sort of current event.
So that means more words about the election and the pandemic, right? No, not this time. |
|
I’m in sort of an odd position as I write this piece. Today is Monday, Nov. 2, the day before Election Day.
By the time most of you read this, it’ll be a day or two or more following Election Day.
You’ll know what happened on that night better than I do right now.
I can’t predict the future as much as I wish I could.
On Thursday, May 28, at 7 p.m., the Cathedral Parish will be hosting Theology on Tap focusing on mental health.
 |
|
With great profit and pleasure I’m currently reading Alec Ryrie’s new book Protestants: The Faith that Made the Modern World. Among the many texts appearing in this year of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation, Ryrie’s stands out for its verve, clarity, and historical sweep.
In some ways, it is an answer to Brad Gregory’s The Unintended Reformation, though it lacks the intellectual depth and thoroughness of Gregory’s magisterial study. What has so far intrigued me most of all in Ryrie’s book is his portrait of the undisputed father of the Reformation, Martin Luther.
|
|
Robert Cardinal Sarah’s recent book The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of Noise explores a number of themes both theological and spiritual, all centering around the unhappy role that noise has come to play in our culture and more specifically in the Church.
His observations are most trenchant in regard to the liturgy, which should come as no great surprise, given his role as head of the Vatican Congregation devoted to liturgy and sacraments. As I read the sections of his book dealing with the importance of silence during Mass, I often found myself nodding vigorously.
|
|
One of the greatest privileges I have as a bishop is the opportunity to preside at the Sacrament of Confirmation. A drawback, however, is that I am obligated to conduct over 40 Confirmations in roughly a two month period — which means that I become tired, rather quickly, of my own homily!
As a result, I’m frequently shifting gears, trying out new ideas, looking at the complex phenomenon of Confirmation from a variety of angles. I want to share with you in this article some of the key ideas in the latest iteration of my Confirmation sermon.
|
|
This past week, we celebrated the 100th anniversary of the first apparition of Our Lady to a group of shepherd children near the Portuguese town of Fatima. The series of Fatima appearances — lasting from May until October of 1917 — is one of the most extraordinary in the history of the Church.
It has also beguiled political and cultural commentators outside the ambit of the Church, and it is this wider implication that I would like to explore.
|
|
I have always loved the Acts of the Apostles and have often recommended it to those who are approaching the Bible for the first time. Filled with colorful narratives, adventure, martyrdom, persecution, journeys by sea, etc., it makes for stimulating reading indeed.
But I love it especially because it shows us the excitement of being a follower of Jesus. Long before there were parishes and dioceses and the Vatican and other institutional structures, there was this band of brothers and sisters who were so overwhelmed and energized by the fact of the resurrection that they went careening around the world and to their deaths with the message of Jesus.
|
|
|
Word on Fire
|
Thomas Hobbes considered human civilization as an endless war of all against all with the only viable solution being the power of the state to regulate, order, and control.
Georg Frederich Hegel postulated that existence was an experience of inescapeable dialectics, a violent collision of opposites and it was only in this state of affairs that new growth and development was possible.
Friedrich Nietzsche insisted that all is “will to power” and that it is the master of power alone that escapes the heavy hand of fate.
These ideas have all had great weight. Whether we know about them or recognize their validity or not, these ideas have shaped, formed, and defined our culture.
|
|
Rod Dreher’s The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation has certainly emerged as the most talked-about religious book of 2017. Within weeks of its publication, dozens of editorials, reviews, op-eds, and panel discussions were dedicated to it. Practically every friend and contact I have sent me something about the book and urged me to comment on it.
The very intensity of the interest in the text in one way proves Dreher’s central point, namely, that there is a widely-felt instinct that something has gone rather deeply wrong with the culture and that classical Christianity, at least in the West, is in a bit of a mess.
