Author: Jim Bowman

Jim Bowman covered religion 1968-78 for the Chicago Daily News, since then has written books, articles, etc., mostly on corporate history but also on religion (Company Man: My Jesuit Life, 1950-1968), and more recently on politics (Illinois Blues: How the Ruling Party Talks to Voters -- Lulu.com, Kindle). Longtime Oak Park, Illinois, resident, he lives now on Chicago's North Side, where four of his and Winnie's six children live close by.

Vatican bows to pressure, releases retired pope’s letter

Tip of the iceberg in this at times sleazy papacy. Not happy to say it.

The previously hidden part of the letter provides the full explanation why Benedict refused to write a commentary on a new Vatican-published compilation of books about Francis’ theological and philosophical background that was released to mark his fifth anniversary as pope.

In addition to saying he didn’t have time, Benedict noted that one of the authors involved in the project had launched “virulent,” ”anti-papist” attacks against his teaching and that of St. John Paul II. He said he was “surprised” the Vatican had chosen the theologian to be included in the 11-volume “The Theology of Pope Francis.”

“I’m certain you can understand why I’m declining,” Benedict wrote.

I’d say we can. Francis’ administration — I’d use that word, because (a) it’s accurate and (b) it has accurate overtones of high politicization — is misreading what Francis wants or doing things the way he wants it. By now the former is highly unlikely, in view of the tight ship Francis is steering.

via Vatican bows to pressure, releases retired pope’s letter | Chicago Sun-Times

Whoa. National Review endorses Jeannie Ives

The long-time voice of conservatism. (Even if it missed the boat on Trump.)

Voters in Illinois will head to the polls this Tuesday. They should vote for Jeanne Ives in the Republican gubernatorial primary over the thoroughly disappointing incumbent governor Bruce Rauner, who has forfeited any claim on his party’s nod.

via Jeanne Ives – Illinois Governor Endorsement | National Review

Cardinal Cupich scores again with a call for social action, this time for gun legislation

I challenge you. Can you recall any case where this cardinal missed a headline story about left-leaning or -inspired social issues on which he has failed to fasten?

The nation’s young people are “shaming the adult world into action” on gun violence, said Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich, referring to survivors of the recent school shooting in Parkland, Florida, who have become activists on the issue. “Their voices are a wake-up call that should have been heard years ago.”

“The time for words is over, our children our telling us. What is now required is action,” Cupich said Feb. 28, adding that elected officials should “stop saying that they will pray for victims and uphold family values if that is the only response they care to give to these tragedies.”

Or one in which he has failed to give out the current OK words for us all to chomp on?

Does his “time for words is over” mean he’s gonna drop the issue?

via Cardinal Cupich calls for action on gun legislation | National Catholic Reporter

‘Enough Is Enough’: US Students Stage Walkouts Against Guns

Campus hi-jinks.

Declaring enough is enough, tens of thousands of young people from Maine to Alaska walked out of school to demand action on gun violence Wednesday in one of the biggest student protests since the Vietnam era.

Braving snow in New England and threats of school discipline in places like Georgia and Ohio, they carried signs with messages such as “Am I next?,” railed against the National Rifle Association and bowed their heads in memory of the 17 dead in the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

This too shall pass.

Donald Trump grew wary of Andrew McCabe in wake of debunked New York Times story

For which the Times won applause.

The New York Times eventually submitted the story to the prestigious Polk Awards as part of a 12- story package. The story helped the Times win an award for its Trump-Russia reporting.

Let us now use a pinch of salt when he take prestigious Polk awards seriously. Maybe when he take any prestigious awards seriously.

via Donald Trump grew wary of Andrew McCabe in wake of debunked New York Times story – Washington Times

Tales of the Vatican — novel titles currently reverberating in the teeming brain of this blogger

Get the Whistle-blower is one.  Or Let My Financial Criminals Go.

Others: The Pope and His Italian Cardinals: This Curia Ain’t Ready for Reform or Gunfight at the IOR Corral(Vatican bank) or the same at APSA (Vatican treasury and general accounting department), each handling Euros by the freight-car load with little accounting to anyone.

There should be a chapter called “Battle of the cardinals,” in which one of them has the monarch’s ear in the vintage Italian way, the other (Anglo-Saxon) does not. The latter, appointed to clean things up, asks repeatedly that the other be fired for proven malfeasance. But this fellow dines regularly with the monarch. Not to give the plot away, but who do you think is winning that one?

Other possible chapters:

* “The Cry of the Curia: We don’t need no stinkin’ Secretariat of the Economy” (set up early in this papacy to fix it all, alas).

* “Calcagno si, Vallejo no,” in which perp cardinal thrives, whistle-blowing monsignor goes to (Vatican) jail. For ratting.

The novel would find its material, much more than here adumbrated, complete with voluminous sources, in Dictator Pope, by the shrewd, pseudonymous Marcantonio Colonna.

For which there isthis boisterous pitch on Amazon:

Marcantonio Colonna’s The Dictator Pope has rocked Rome and the entire Catholic Church with its portrait of an authoritarian, manipulative, and politically partisan pontiff. Occupying a privileged perch in Rome during the tumultuous first years of Francis’s pontificate, Colonna was privy to the shock, dismay, and even panic that the reckless new pope engendered in the Church’s most loyal and judicious leaders.

The Dictator Pope discloses that Father Mario Bergoglio (the future Pope Francis) was so unsuited for ecclesiastical leadership that the head of his own Jesuit order tried to prevent his appointment as a bishop in Argentina. Behind the benign smile of the ‘people’s pope’ Colonna reveals a ruthless autocrat aggressively asserting the powers of the papacy in pursuit of a radical agenda.”

Soon to be a major motion picture, as Abby Hoffman called his bio? I doubt it, but things do happen.

Sacrosanctum Concilium 11

Commentator cites or claims “huge oversight on the part of modern critics of participation, [including me, more or less] who suggest there’s too much emphasis on the external.” Point made, but sauce for goose is also for gander, in this case Father at the altar ought to be and look absorbed, not be looking around, counting the crowd, etc. Not businesslike. Some do, some don’t.

See therefore also the next paragraph: “As spiritual guides, pastors are urged to see that their personal focus is not limited to the rubrics. Their responsibility is the full awareness of the people, their active engagement–external and internal, and that the faith community as a whole experiences spiritual growth as a result of liturgy.”

Catholic Sensibility

The council bishops recognized that the old legalistic/minimalist approach was a millstone around our necks.

But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain (Cf. 2 Cor. 6:1.) . Pastors of souls must therefore realize that, when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration; it is their duty also to ensure that the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite, and enriched by its effects.

This is also the introduction to the oft-repeated council sentiment of full, active, and enriching participation. The council is explicit in stating…

View original post 171 more words

Reforming the curia under Pope Francis . . .

. . . not what his supporters in the conclave had in mind. For instance:

Like young Lochinvar coming out of the West, Cardinal George Pell came out of (up from) Australia as new sheriff in charge of cleaning out the financial deep state that is, not used to be, the Vatican. Too bad for him — even before he got called home to face sexual-abuse charges. (Sigh)

The opposition to Cardinal Pell [in Rome] has been headed by four cardinals who are interested not merely in stalling the financial reform but returning the Vatican structures to the position before Pell appeared on the scene.

We may begin with Cardinal Domenico Calcagno, who has been president of APSA [Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See — handling its money] since 2011 and who is the most scandalous of the four. Gianluigi Nuzzi, in one of his more outspoken comments, describes Calcagno as “the scheming prelate and wily connoisseur of the Curia’s secrets.”

Before being appointed to the Curia, Calcagno had been Bishop of Savona, where between 2002 and 2003 he ignored repeated instances of sexual violence against minors by one of his priests, simply moving him on to another parish. What is even more shocking is that Calcagno is still under investigation for real-estate dealings which harmed the diocese’s finances.

It is a commentary on Francis’s pontificate that such a background is not thought incompatible with the holding of one of the key financial posts in the Vatican.

From: Colonna, Marcantonio. The Dictator Pope (Kindle Locations 1112-1120). Kindle Edition.

Sigh.