What’s going on, special attn. to final sentence:

HOLY WEEK

Due to the current pandemic, the Archdiocese has directed that there be no public Liturgies. The Masses of Holy Week will be offered in abbreviated form by Father Rutler.

On Palm Sunday, April 5, there will be no distribution of palms, but they will be blessed for possible future use. While Masses of the Triduum cannot be transferred, the Chrism Mass, normally celebrated in the Cathedral, will be translated to later in the year.

In these days, we pray especially for the soldiers, staff and patients in the emergency field hospital at the Javits Center, which is in our parish, and which Father Rutler is serving as chaplain.

Let us pray for him and his people.

Lyin’ for China, he says. No more simoleons for a while.

He’s home free.

CANBERRA, Australia — Australia’s highest court has dismissed the convictions of the most senior Catholic found guilty of child sex abuse.

High Court Chief Justice Susan Kiefel announced the decision of the seven judges on Tuesday in the appeal of Cardinal George Pell. The decision means he will be released from Barwon Prison outside Melbourne after serving 13 months of a six-year sentence.

A Holy Week gift. Now, back to Rome, where he was putting Vatican finances in some kind of order?

Not clear, per this Wall St. Journal account:

Cardinal Pell has said privately that he wants to remain in Australia, near friends and family members, following his release from prison. But his continued presence in the country, where he is the most prominent symbol of the clerical-abuse crisis, might make it harder for church leaders to move beyond the scandals.

On the other hand, his…

Doubles down as public complainer.

A day after President Donald Trump accused him of “always complaining,” Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker kept up his critique of federal efforts to provide states with the gear needed to protect health care workers and treat patients in a pandemic that has now claimed more than 300 lives in Illinois.

“To anyone who wants a response to some of the blame-shifting coming out of the White House, all I have to say is, ‘Look at the numbers here in Illinois,’ ” Pritzker said Monday at his daily coronavirus news conference in downtown Chicago.

He has his audience, know what to do with it.

Gets tiresome.

By the learned and articulate Fr. Hunwicke.

The claim, explicit or implicit, that these things were ‘ordered by the Council’, is a wantonly and grossly mendacious retrojection. It bears the finger-prints of the Father of Lies himself. Most of the Council Fathers expected a very much more modest reform. That is why only four voted against the draft decree. The Fathers certainly did not anticipate the displacement, however optional, of the Roman Canon — a move which is not even hinted at in the Decree.

Sock-em bust-em.

You wanna feel good about our prospects? Don’t read this.