Ruminations of an Amateur Monastic
Dom Alcuin Reid has a wonderful article on Pope Benedict XVI’s liturgical reforms. Here’s a taste: There was much noise before and after his historic 2007 ruling that the older liturgical rites were henceforth to be available without restriction. Yet in the midst of the cacophony the Supreme Pontiff took the trouble to write at length to the world’s bishops […]
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Vatican Insider magazine online has produced a really great infographic on how a Pope is elected. It’s well worth checking out. I‘d also like to point you in the direction of two of the better essays out there on the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI. From Sandro Magister, we have this, on Benedict the disregarded reformer: Over his nearly eight […]
» Read moreFrom First Things: We have lived through fifty years of self-inflicted wounds, some very deep. John Paul II and Benedict XVI felt these traumas, of course, and they responded effectively. John Paul II spoke forcefully about the non-negotiable objectivity of moral truth and the unity of faith and reason. Benedict XVI emphasized the renewal of the liturgy and promoted firm […]
» Read more(Source) Benedict XVI the Precedent Setting Pope: Now he surprises us again. Not for six hundred years has a pope stepped aside. He has done so quickly and unexpectedly. While his decision cannot have been sudden. The sudden effectiveness–he will be gone within a few weeks–is brilliant. There is scarcely time for the world’s cardinals to book their plane tickets–much […]
» Read morePope Benedict XVI Like so many others, I am stunned and grieving. I was baptized in 2005 just a month before Pope Benedict’s election, and his hand on the tiller is the only one I’ve really known. We can but pray. Francine and I are beginning the Camino de Santiago shortly after Easter, and I will now offer it for […]
» Read moreDear Brothers, I have convoked you to this Consistory, not only for the three canonizations, but also to communicate to you a decision of great importance for the life of the Church. After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an […]
» Read moreDuring this Year of Faith, the Pope has asked us to re-examine the most recent Council, which began fifty years ago this year, and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which turns twenty. Plenty of folks have an axe to grind one way or the other about the Second Vatican Council, but frankly it ended before I was born, and […]
» Read morePope Benedict XVI has proclaimed a “Year of Faith” to run from today, 11 October 2012, through to 24 November 2013. Pastoral guidelines have been published that call for prayer, celebrations, pilgrimages, catechetical events, missions, and new forms of evangelization. The Pope calls us to profess the faith, celebrate the faith, and witness to the faith. Faith grows when it […]
» Read moreBenedict! The man who saved European civilization! The man who invented western monasticism! I‘ve often written of him, and of his sister Saint Scholastica. The very foundation of this blog was the monastic movement that Benedict began 1500 years ago. Frankly, you’re probably sick of hearing my blatherings. What we need is somebody way smarter than me to sum him […]
» Read moreHildegard of Bingen is one of those medieval figures who can cause a lot of confusion to people not paying close attention. She (or, rather, a version of her with her Christianity stripped out) has been adopted by some of the New Agers as one of their own. Of course, if you strip the Christianity out of the life of […]
» Read moreWhen Pope Saint Pius V issued the Papal Bull “Quo Primum” in 1570, Christendom was in chaos. The happy diversity of rites that had persisted through the middle ages had come home to roost in the disjointed response to the Lutheran reforms that, driven by ego and ignorance on both sides, had spun out of control into heresy and reformation. […]
» Read more…to reform the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCRW). The Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) has called for reform of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) and named Archbishop Peter Sartain of Seattle as its Archbishop Delegate for the initiative. Bishop Leonard Blair and Bishop Thomas John Paprocki also were also named to assist in […]
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As he was mobbed by Bavarian well-wishers on the occasion of his 85th birthday celebrations, Pope Benedict XVI today said, I find myself on the last stretch of my journey in life, and I don’t know what is awaiting me. I know, however, that the light of God exists, that he is risen, that his light is stronger than any […]
» Read moreThis afternoon at Mass, the priest took the rather unusual step of preaching the Pope’s homily from his Mass in Cuba. He said that although it was intended as a call to arms for those suffering under the Cuban-Castro-Communist regime, it might just as well be a wake-up call to us here in the United States. Here’s the part he […]
» Read moreOn his current trip to Mexico and Cuba, Pope Benedict XVI has been spotted using a cane to steady himself. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, after all the Pope at 85 is one of the longest-lived Popes in history – though he still has a long way to go if he wants to catch up to Leo XIII! Would […]
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