Sunday sermons, weekday observations
Today two priest-pundits offer essays that really cannot be missed, says the eminently alert Phil Lawler:
Father George William Rutler is at his best, which is very, very good, as he analyzes the US bishops’ discussion of capital punishment for Crisis. He focuses attention on the decision by Pope Francis to change the Catechism, to say that the death penalty is now “inadmissible.” One hapless bishop described that word a bit of “eloquent ambiguity,” and readers will enjoy Father Rutler’s reaction to that comment. On the new wording itself, Father Rutler writes:
If “inadmissible” does not mean something essentially different from what has already been said magisterially about capital punishment, why is it necessary to revise the Catechism to include it? Secondly, if the word “inadmissible” is deliberately ambiguous, why does it belong in a catechism whose purpose is to eschew ambiguity?
Blithe Spirit 