Category: Blithe Spirit

The good and the bad, emphasis on Trib and Sun-Times

Pope declines to rule on German bishops’ intercommunion proposal

Debate moderator: C,mon, fellows, work this out, OK?

Pope Francis has declined to rule on the validity of a policy approved by the German bishops’ conference, which would allow non-Catholic spouses of Catholics to receive Communion.

The policy was approved by a majority of the German bishops, but a substantial minority objected, and seven German bishops wrote to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) asking for clarification on whether the policy was in line with Church teaching.

At a May 3 meeting at the Vatican, Archbishop Luis Ladaria, the prefect of the CDF, told a delegation of the German hierarchy that the Holy Father wished them to continue discussion of the issue among themselves, hoping for “a possibly unanimous arrangement.”

Hey, it’s a long, long-time settled matter, going back to St. Paul (that far enough for you?) in 1 Corinthians 11.27-29:

27Therefore whoever eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord unworthily will have to answer for the body and blood of the Lord.*

28A person should examine himself,* and so eat the bread and drink the cup.

29For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body, eats and drinks judgment* on himself.

So why is Francis acting as if it’s up for grabs? He’s willing to swing his weight in other matters, why not here? That is, he’s sure about other things, even declaring this or that “magisterial.” Not in this case?

via  Catholic Culture

Trump’s numbers keep rising

Not bad considering frontal assault from all sides. (Frontal?)

The Rasmussen Reports daily Presidential Tracking Poll for Thursday shows that 50% of Likely U.S. Voters approve of President Trump’s job performance. Forty-nine percent (49%) disapprove.

The latest figures include 33% who Strongly Approve of the way Trump is performing and 40% who Strongly Disapprove. This gives him a Presidential Approval Index rating of -7. (see trends).

As for trends, the negative rating is improved as much as 1.9 points since August.

via Daily Presidential Tracking Poll – Rasmussen Reports®

The Pope: Do not remain prisoners of ideas, open yourselves to new things

Consider your bicycle.

In Santa Marta [his Vatican City house], Francis warns against the risk of “rigidity”, “There are those who ‘distill’ the law and transform it into ideology”. “The Church is like a bike in equilibrium, if it stops it falls down”

It’s his pitch for an ever-changing church. All is flux to Francis? Like Heraclitus, who was active around 500 B.C. and is . . . 

. . . best known for his doctrines that things are constantly changing (universal flux), that opposites coincide (unity of opposites), and that fire is the basic material of the world.

The exact interpretation of these doctrines is controversial, as is the inference often drawn from this theory that in the world as Heraclitus conceives it contradictory propositions must be true.

We sincerely hope not, though Francis has an oracular way about him and as quick a draw of a metaphor as we have seen for a long time, in or out of papal office. But what of this?

. . . the Pontiff warns against the risk of “rigidity”, which leads to placing oneself at the center and thus remain untouched before the works of the Holy Spirit and insensitive to new things.

Well, it’s a generic enough statement. And who wants to be rigid? But can it be that he’s gone oracular again, using a phrase familar to him:

The doctors of the law [not found in John 8: 51-59, his text for the day], [he said]. . .  were incapable of “discerning the signs of the times”.

Oh.

They were slaves of words and ideas, Bergoglio [in an Italian publication, where familiarity breeds if not contempt, then a shorthand usage which we Americans eschew] observes in his homily reported by Vatican News.

“Slaves of words and ideas.” Red lights flashing. Slaves. What’s worse?

“They keep going back to the same questions [we’re dying to know some of these, but he’s holding back about it], they are incapable of leaving that closed world, they are prisoners of ideas.

We get it. And we will figure out what those ideas are, don’t worry.

They received a law that was life but they “distilled” it, they transformed it into ideology and thus they toss and turn it and are unable to move beyond. Anything new for them is a threat.”

These are people in a bad way. Let us not be deceived by them. But tell us, Francis, who they are. Please.

Now as a matter of fact, someone has ventured in that very direction. He is the noted “Fr. Z,” Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, regarding a March, 2015 homily. in which he offered a comment, “a snip from an off-the-cuff, non-Magisterial remark,” in which Francis spoke “disparaging words about ‘doctors of the law.’”

Someting was missing, he thought. The very thing I am wondering:

. . . it seems to me that he has set up a straw man: who the heck are these “doctors of the law” whom he has been disparaging with some frequency?

I think he means those who argue that people who are divorced and civilly remarried should not be admitted to Holy Communion because they are objectively living in a state that is inconsistent with our understanding of the Eucharist.

But he won’t come out and say so. It’s not what you want in a homily anyhow, hearing about someone the homilist resents. But Francis does it a lot. He did it in 2015, he did it just the other day.

It’s unseemly. His objectors have registered “dubia,” roughly doubts, about Francis’ read on the state of things as regards marriage the sacrament. He feels put upon but does not answer these “doubts,” these requests for clarification. Why the heck not?

Who knows?

via The Pope: not to remain prisoners of ideas, let’s open ourselves to new things – La Stampa

Michelle Wolf White House Correspondents’ Dinner act surprisingly racy

This POTUS nails it again:

“I could be up there tonight, smiling, like I love where they’re hitting you, shot after shot. These people, they hate your guts … and you’ve got to smile. If you don’t smile, they say, ‘He was terrible, he couldn’t take it.’ And if you do smile, they’ll say, “What was he smiling about?’”

His doughty press secretary had to be there.

Wolf’s act had some in the audience laughing and left others in stony silence. A blistering critique of press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who was seated just feet away, mocked everything from her truthfulness to her appearance and Southern roots.

Face to face with newsies, she does fine, by the way.

Give credit where it’s due, however. Among some good ones, the comic:

-“It is kinda crazy that the Trump campaign was in contact with Russia when the Hillary campaign wasn’t even in contact with Michigan.”

So it goes.

via Washington Times

My friend Jake reads the newspapers, tales of the ’90s . . .

A look at the Wednesday Journal of Oak Park and River Forest:

* The headline story begins, “Despite low voter turnout” the school referendum was passed, etc.  But low turnout is supposed to help pass referendums.  Did WJ mean to undercut this conventional wisdom?  Or did the copy editor go to bed early that night?

* The gang task force story looked familiar, down to the wholly acceptable quote, “Our whole goal is not to have gangs get a foothold in this community.”  “An update” on task force activity is coming in late April.  Nothing yet, however. Well, better no news than bad, says my friend Jake (no relation).

A look at the Sun-Times:

Even Homer nods . . . . . . said Horace — the Roman lyric poet speaking of the Greek epic poet — adding, “but I do not approve.”  So when the esteemed Sun-Times, that journalistic survivor of survivors, does something odd, we take notice.

It happened last January, 1/31/96 to be exact, in a small story, “West Side Man Gets 90 Yrs. in Oak Park Rape” — one of the naked city’s million stories.  The rapist had left his work hat at the crime scene, and that did him in.  It’s an awful story, brutal and repulsive.

But some flowers bloom unseen in the desert air, so the careful reader noticed that the man’s work identified him as an employee of the city’s “Department of Road and Control.”

That’s how it sounded on the telephone, I’m sure, when the reporter called it in from the courthouse. “Hello Baby, give me rewrite,” is an old line from “Front Page.”  Baby gave him rewrite, who was in a hurry and distracted, or never heard of rodent control, and out came “road and control.”  Truly one of the near-great moments of Chicago journalism.

Campaign trail in the newspapers . . . On the Monday after The Week That Was for those lousy Republicans, Sun-Times has a picture of the Clintons and his birthday cake, Hillary beaming while Bill and the kid blow candles. 8 by 5-inch pic, in color, a campaign photo.  The foto-op was given, graciously, by the White House, and there it is, page one, with your coffee.

Next page, there’s Ross Perot and wife, in black and white, 6 by 5, top right, you can’t miss it.  He’d just been nominated, so give him that much, whatthehell archie whatthehell.

One more page and there’s a Republican, black and white, upper right, 4 by 2, his hands raised over his head as if signaling touchdown.  It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s . . . Jack Kemp.  What, no Dole?

And the headline?  “Clinton returns to politics,” subhead “Dole, Kemp fire up backers in Buffalo.” Clinton is campaigning?  I thought he was blowing out birthday candles.

(From the yellowing pages of Blithe Spirit, weekly newsletter of the ’90s and later.)

Soros-Funded Attacks on Orthodox Catholic Universities

Whatever these institutions do, they should not apologize, the writer advises. It will only encourage the attackers.

Writer David Horowitz gets this. He was a red-diaper baby and knows the hard left. He says, the issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.

Today it may seem like the issue is racism, or global warming, or confederate statues. But the issue is never the issue. It is always the revolution, that is, tearing down the institutions of the West and of the patriarchy.

In this case, the issue is not Title IX. [As male accused guilty until proven innocent] The issue is tearing down Catholic colleges and universities that are just a bit too faithful and therefore rub up against the zeitgeist and the policy prescriptions of the political left.

Tricky people.

via The Soros-Funded Attacks on Orthodox Catholic Universities – Crisis Magazine

Council of Cardinals preparing draft of new apostolic constitution

​What’s this all about?

Vatican City, Apr 25, 2018 / 08:17 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Pope Francis and his Council of Cardinals met this week to continue their discussion of curial reform and to work on the draft of a new apostolic constitution outlining the structure and duties of the Roman Curia.

There is no predicted release date for the apostolic constitution, but the drafting and editing “will take some time,” according to an April 25 Vatican communique. When finished, it will be presented to Pope Francis for further consultation and final approval.

​If they come up​ with​ something that Francis doesn’t like, however, won’t they be worried about being called names? Gnostics or Pelagians, for instance?

It’s not easy being a cardinal, even if you’re an insider.

Francis’ using the terms G and P, as in his Joy of the Gospel exhortation, seems to have approved them in a later document in a way that’s “at odds with” his “preferred pejorative,” points out a veteran Life Site News reporter. (Argument is fairly dense here, but holds up.)

As for the proposed apostolic constitution about curial reform, Catholic News Agency reports an odd omission from announced plans:

​During the meetings, the pope and cardinals received an update on the progress of the reform of the Vatican communications system by Msgr. Lucio Ruiz, secretary and acting prefect of the Secretariat for Communications. Notably, there was no update on the state of the Vatican’s financial reforms, a typical topic of the council’s reunions.​

Notably indeed, especially since curial financial reform has NOT been a jewel in the crown of this papacy. The Dictator Pope author has so concluded after describing and citing case after case where reform has not happened but has been thwarted..

To sum up: four vitally important reformist bodies were put in place in the last few years, the Financial Information Authority, the Council for the Economy, the Secretariat for the Economy, and the Office of the Auditor General.

Since their inception, these entities have been the target of attacks by anti-reform members of the Curia, left in place and empowered by Pope Francis himself—attacks that have made these reformist bodies effectively powerless.

Was the pope aware of these attacks? Insiders confirm to us that the answer is yes, and that he signed one illogical executive order after another to accelerate the demise of these bodies.

If this is the case, Pope Francis might be storing up more trouble than he imagines, because if the Vatican fails to reform itself, secular authorities might well step in.

How so?

How long, for example, will the Italian judiciary wait before demanding the names of the Italian citizens who have broken Italian law, in acts from money laundering to tax evasion, by using APSA-ciphered accounts?

Will European and international banking authorities decide to shut down APSA’s access to global banking until APSA is reformed by bodies outside the Vatican?

And finally, and most historic of all, will Francis’s failures prompt the Italian government to denounce the Lateran Treaty of 1929, ending Vatican City’s status as an independent state, in order to clean up the lawless, corrupt playground the Vatican has become?

So good luck to the cardinalatial council. But have they nothing planned to address this “typical topic of the council’s reunions”?

As the famous Alice observed about her wonderland experience, this thing gets curiouser and curiouser.