Pope Francis again castigates fellow Catholics

He has a way with words. Whence comes such another?

#PopeFrancis at Mass to mark 60 years since opening of Vatican II says that progressivism and “traditionalism — or backwardness — aren’t evidence of love, but of infidelity” and “Pelagian egoisms which put our own tastes and plans above the love that pleases God.”

As chief shepherd of millions, he owes us an explanation. For instance, what are Pelagian egoisms? Try what duckduckgo (a google alternative) comes up with and see where you fit in. You might learn something.

It’s heretical, that much is for sure, and while denying original sin, is clearly something that puts the blame not only on Mame but on all of us. Born free of evil tendencies, we can make it on own after all and if we don’t, then . . . You get it.

In any case, the shepherd of us all . . . what? As I say, he should explain.

Rev. Michael Pfleger removed from St. Sabina again as Archdiocese probes another decades-old sex abuse claim

. . .less than two years after he was cleared of charges on separate accusations.

“Let me be clear — I am completely innocent of this accusation. While I am confident that the new allegation will also be determined to be unfounded, this process is so unfair and painful to me and to the community I serve,” Pfleger wrote.

He blames the process? Is this new for him?

The Rape of Berlin

During the months of April and May, 1945, as Soviet Red Army troops approached and eventually invaded Berlin, almost two million German women were raped on a level of violence never seen before or since. Figures provided by historians such as Antony Beevor (2002) suggest that of the two million victims, almost 100,000 eventually committed suicide, and in 1946 10% of all babies born in Germany had Soviet fathers.

makinghistoryatmacquarie

THE RAPE OF BERLIN

We all know about the horrors of World War II and what Hitler and the Nazis did all over Europe in the name of Aryan supremacy. But what a lot of people don’t know is what actually happened in Germany in the final days of the Nazi regime.

During the months of April and May, 1945, as Soviet Red Army troops approached and eventually invaded Berlin, almost two million German women were raped on a level of violence never seen before or since. Figures provided by historians such as Antony Beevor (2002) suggest that of the two million victims, almost 100,000 eventually committed suicide, and in 1946 10% of all babies born in Germany had Soviet fathers.

While these figures are astonishing, what is maybe even more remarkable is the fact that for over 50 years there was a concerted effort to keep the facts of…

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Read a book or watch TV

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. tried meditating in the ’60s, he said, in his Palm Sunday: An Autobiographical Collage, [I think. Sorry] using a mantra, a Sanskrit word which he thinks may mean $85, what he paid for it. Later it dawned on him that “in our civilization” we meditate using “a medieval object, a book,” putting ourselves in touch with people in ages gone by. This kind of meditation, he says, gives “access to brains better than our own.” . . . .

More more more here . . .

Ecstatic and intoxicate A French poet who influenced Baudelaire and Breton

I love it how TLS comes up with these things I never heard of.

This one, from last week’s issue, is about a poet who kicked against the goad from start to finish. Stubborn bloke who I hope saw God in all things.

In translating these poems, Gallas and Kurt Gänzl have presented a reliquary of gems that glint and glare and burn, successfully evoking the energy of Borel’s verse. Produced through a two-step process of translating and “repoeming”, the book is a credit to Gallas’s poetic instinct, which colours and sculpts Gänzl’s initial translations. These translations may even rival the original French versions in verve and flourish. Perhaps Petrus Borel, who died in anonymity of heatstroke in Algeria, will finally have a more fortuitous moment in the sun.

Reviewer

Sarah-Jean Zubair is a postgraduate student in English Literature at University College London. She holds an MA in English and Comparative Literature from Columbia University, New York

ALLELUIA TIME for Jesuit novices 72 years ago. Christ is risen . . . Deo Gratias at breakfast, manual labor, correcting your neighbor, looking ahead .

We finished the third week and had our third break day—walking in the morning, playing “passball” in the afternoon (touch football without touching), returning to retreat mode with 4:30 “flexoria,” afternoon meditation—and entered the Fourth Week, about the risen life of Christ.

If you never thought four days of meditating could be fun, then you never did it after three-plus weeks raking over the coals in your soul including a long, hard look at suffering and death on a near-cosmic scale.

Read the rest here.