Arkham on the Loose

Sandro Magister: The Synod of the German Church Under the Analyst's Lens. A Revolution That Self-destructs

The first of the three documents represents a genuine revolution, a “democratization” of the Church with elective access to the leading roles and with the subseqent duty of the elected to respond not only to other “democratically chosen bodies” but also to “an independent jurisdiction.”

But isn't this a subversion of the foundational structure of the Catholic Church?

Should the be some sort of election of clergy, presbyters and bishops? That might be the ancient practice in one form or another. Is it a subversion of the foundational structure of the Catholic Church? No. God may be the source of authority, but He has left the determination of who is suited to hold authority to us, and sometimes mistakes are made. Still, even if the German Catholic "reformers" are correct about having popular or quasi-popular election of clergy, that doesn't mean their motives are correct or their implementation.

Vatican Drama?

Sandro Magister: Pope Benedict Embroiled in the War Between Re and Zen. But China Is Winning

Pope Francis's Mistake on Nationalism

Sandro Magister: Between Nationalisms and Right Idea of Nation. The Political Misstep of Pope Francis

But Roberto Pertici is wrong too about the nationalism that is tied to the state, as it serves the state and not the other way around.

Two Views on Zero Tolerance

CWR: Questions remain about McCarrick, even as new scandals emerge by Christopher R. Altieri
If the Vatican hoped to score even a qualified public relations victory with the announcement of the McCarrick verdict, news that broke heading into the weekend made that unlikely.

Sandro Magister: “Zero Tolerance.” The Watchword of a Church Without Mercy

Sandro Magister: How To Be a "Creative Minority" Today. The Example of the Christians of the First Three Centuries

But does he overstate the difference between the Christians and non-Christians living in the same society? Was secession a possibility for them in the Roman Empire?

Related: Saint Benedict in the 21st Century. But "La Civiltà Cattolica" Condemns Him to the Stake

More on Cardinal Zen and the Curia

Sandro Magister: Chinese Bishops Illegitimate, Official, Clandestine… Which Ones Francis Is Rewarding and Which He Is Not and Zen: "The Vatican Secretary of State Is Wrong"

CNA: Vatican-China bishops deal is ‘imminent’, sources say

Sandro Magister: Danger of Schism in China. Cardinal Zen: "The Pope Told Me…". With a Postscript

Sandro Magister: Danger of Schism in China. Cardinal Zen: "The Pope Told Me…". With a Postscript

The Knights of Malta Controversy Continues

Sandro Magister: The Knights of Malta Have an Extra Grand Elector. The Pope

Sandro Magister: Strange Christmas in China. It Is the Feast of the Excommunicated Bishops

Pope Francis in Armenia

Chiesa: “Genocide,” the Word Francis Doesn’t Want To Say Anymore

He has removed it from his vocabulary on the verge of the journey to Armenia. And yet in the past he has used it repeatedly, including for the extermination carried out by the Turks a century ago. This is why he has decided to remove it

but an update...

Chiesa: “Genocide,” the Word Francis Wanted to Repeat. In Armenia

He said it again, by surprise, at the presidential palace in Yerevan, in the first speech of his journey. Departing from the written text, which was silent on it

Unqualified for Political Discourse

CWR Blog: Pope Francis: "Amoris Laetitia" opens up "many" new possibilities for divorced, remarried Catholics
In remarks made during in-flight interview to Rome the Holy Father discusses Turkey and Europe, Bernie Sanders, immigrants, refugee crisis, borders, and new Apostolic Exhortation.

First, a repetition of "children of God" with the novel meaning, rather than the meaning proper to Scripture and to Tradition:

Franca Giansoldati (Il Messaggero): You speak much about welcoming, but perhaps you speak too little about integration. Seeing what is happening in Europe, where there’s this massive influx of immigrants, we see that there are many cities that suffer from ghetto sectors… in all of this, it emerges that Muslim immigrants are those who have the most difficult time integrating themselves with our values, Western values… wouldn’t it be more useful to favor the immigration of Christian immigrants? And why did you favor three entirely Muslim families?

Pope Francis: I didn’t make a religious choice between Christians and Muslims. These three families had their documents in order. There were, for example, two Christian families who didn’t. This is not a privilege. All 12 of them are children of God. It’s a privilege to be a child of God. For what regards integration…you said a word which in current culture seems to be forgotten, after war still exist: the ghettos. And some of the terrorists are children and grandchildren of people born in European countries and what has happened? There was no policy of integration. And this, for me, is fundamental. In the post-synodal apostolic exhortation integration is spoken of. One of the the three pastoral dimensions for families in difficulty is integration into society. Today, Europe must take up again this capacity that it has always had: to integrate. With integration, Europe’s culture is enriched. I think that we need an education, a lesson, on a culture of integration.

How does one integrate Muslims? By making them secular liberals along with Christians? The bishop of Rome has not thought this through.

Elena Pinardi (EBU): Holy Father, they’re talking about reinforcing the borders of different European countries, of deploying battalions along the borders of Europe. Is it the end of Schengen, is it the end of the European dream?

Pope Francis: I don’t know. I understand the governments and the people that have a certain fear. I understand. And, we must take a real responsibility for welcoming. How do we integrate these people with us? I’ve said this, but making walls is not the solution. We saw it in the last century, the fall of one. It doesn’t resolve anything. We must make bridges and bridges are made with intelligence, dialogue, integration. I understand the fear, but to close the borders doesn’t resolve anything. Because in the long run, that closure will hurt the people themselves. Europe must make a policy of welcoming, integration, growth, work, the reform of the economy. All of these are the bridges that lead us to not making walls. After what I’ve seen in that refugee camp, and what you saw, was to cry about. The kids. They’ve given me so many drawings. The children want peace because they’re suffering. It’s true that there they have educational courses in the camp. What have they seen? Look at this: what they’ve seen: a drowned child! The kids have got this in their hearts. Today was truly to cry about. It was to cry about. The same drawing was made by an Afghan child. These children have this in their memories. They’ll need time to remove this from their memories. There was a sun that cried in the drawing. A tear would also do us well.

No idea how to integrate them? Then don't advocate that they be present in the first place, or allow for segregation. At the very least allow that there may be no way to integrate them and that a different solution is required. After all, this should be evidence that specific means for integration and integration itself are not part of Sacred Tradition. And the current bishop of Rome has no special competence in moral theology in this matter.

Curtain’s Up! Showtime at the Pope’s Theater
Lesbos and Lampedusa. Holy door and washing of feet. The briefcase in hand on the airplane staircase. Here is how Francis is enacting the pedagogical theater of the seventeenth-century Jesuits

And so patriots are upset: Orthodox Church Joins Pope Francis’s Effort To Destroy Europe Through “Virtue Tourism”

Edit.

Italian Dominicans in Decline

NLM: Good News and Bad from the Dominican Order by Gregory DiPippo

But vocations in the USA (East and West coasts) are on the rise?

See Sandro Magister on the situation with San Marco.

The Answer to One Question

asked here -- Sandro Magister. As for his motivation in leaking the encyclical...

The Freedom of the Church Versus Chinese Totalitarianism

The Cardinals Are Dueling Over China, but the Mandarins Dominate the Game by Sandro Magister

“No agreement is better than a bad agreement,” says Zen, criticizing secretary of state Parolin. The pope is keeping silent. And Shanghai remains without its bishop, under arrest for three years

"The Church Needs Us as Anglicans"

Why?

Ecumenism Behind Closed Doors

While Benedict XVI made it easier for Anglicans in disagreement with the “liberal” direction of their Church to enter into the Catholic Church, Francis is not, he prefers that they remain where they are. The revelations of two Anglican friends of the pope

by Sandro Magister

Any Mention from Obama?

Christians in Muslim Lands. Blessed Are the Persecuted

“They are left alone and undefended like the Jews," charges an authoritative rabbi. Under the illusion that this will facilitate peace with the Muslims. A survey of the situation described by an Israeli Jesuit expert

by Sandro Magister

Chiesa: Vatican Diary / The first saint of North Korea
He was the bishop of Pyongyang. For more than sixty years he was considered "missing." But now the Holy See has made his death official, at the age of 106. To permit the opening of his cause of beatification

Il Credo nei mosaici di Monreale - Io credo in Dio, Padre onnipotente, creatore del cielo e della terra

Chiesa: The Most Beautiful "Credo" in the World Is in Monreale
TV2000

The "State of the Church"

The Church That the New Pope Will Govern by Sandro Magister

It will be a Church with two thirds of the faithful in the southern hemisphere. With more Catholics in Manila than in Holland. With the West in a decline of faith. And with the United States at the center of the new geography

A Church of numbers or a Church of faithful? Does the growth in numbers give a misleading picture of the health of the local churches? How good are the native seminaries? Are many of them still staffed by foreign missionaries who are neo-modernist in belief? How well are the faithful in the "boom" countries catechized? After all, the description given here is primarily of "Latin," or Roman-rite Catholics. Spanish-speaking Catholics (and I would argue Roman-rite Catholicis in general) may be receptive to liturgical worship that makes greater use of the senses. But what is the state of liturgical music in Ibero-America? Someone I met on Saturday commented that Latinos might adjust quickly to the use of icons, given the place of statues in their devotional life. Better music, more sacred images, and a greater use of liturgical gestures might be a bulwark against the temptation of a sentimental "pentecostal"-style worship.

I think this kind of assessment (and Magister is not the only one who looks at the Church in such a way, especially now with the election of a new pope in the news) does not accurately depict the health of local Roman-rite churches, nor give an idea of what sort of actions or reforms are necessary at a "universal" level [some would say at the level of the Roman or Western patriarchate]. (It's based on this sort of statistical description that some would advocate for a non-Italian or non-caucasian pope, in the name of reflecting the current and future "demographics" of the Church.)

It reminds me - I have not read anything on how the underground Catholics in China deal with the population control laws. Do they resort to NFP with the thinking that the threat of government coercion and punishment provides a grave and necessary reason?

Is the age of the Tridentine seminary system over, at least in the "West"? Would it be possible to adopt a more localized form of clerical education, modeled after the English universities and their use of tutors? Could we use alternative means of students demonstrating their understanding of the material? (Any living form of scholasticism would not require the lecture as a teaching medium.) This sort of tutorial would be coupled with an apprenticeship at a local parish - my preference would be one with several priests living together and praying the hours in common. At the very least it would be a parish seeking a better liturgical life. Seminarians currently learn various liturgical offices in the context of communal worship - why could this part of their education be transferred to the local parish, as much as possible? They could continue learning singing/sacred music together, as it may be more efficient . The singing of readings and so on needs to be recovered. [An adaptation of Latin singing/chanting is still probably better than whatever has been invented for American English.]

This should not be seen as a cost-cutting measure - though the abolition of a seminary may have that consequence. The faculty could be retained in a tutorial system, while any lay teachers of sacred music, for example, could also be employed at the cathedral (if they are not already) to improve the quality of the music there. Is such a system feasible? And would it be more readily applicable to the education of married men to be ordained to the diaconate (or even the priesthood)?

Would it be possible for Catholics in the typical American mega-city or suburb to organize among themselves and to make housing available on the market to other Catholics? While most Catholics remain wage-slaves and tied to some profession or industry such an effort may be useless, but what if Catholics decide to develop and participate in an alternative economy?

Even if Catholics are unable to avoid wage-slavery this does not prevent them from participating in the life of a local parish as much as possible. But they must be taught and encouraged to do so, and to re-think friendship and what it means to be a Christian. Voluntary simplicity as a contemporary form of Christian witness.