Catholic Church

Among the many abrupt twists and turns in our online-driven, unstable social life, one of the oddest is the recent career of “Cultural Christianity” (hereafter “CC”). CC refers to the merely passive – and precarious – residue of Christianity in many people’s lives, not a fully living faith. In the 1980s and 1990s, it was often denigrated as a sharp decline from the robust religiosity once quite evident in America. Indeed, back then it seemed there was an emerging “Catholic moment” – the title of a 1987 book by our late friend, Fr. Richard John Neuhaus, published three years before he converted from Lutheranism. Evangelicals, too, were lamenting “The Scandal of the Evangelical Mind,” the lack of substance among their otherwise committed and politically influential fellows. There seemed to be a mood for Christian renewal.

h/t Marc

The Shroud of Turin — the burial relic in which Jesus Christ is supposed to have been wrapped after his crucifixion — has long been a source of fascination and contention. The cloth, which appears to bear the imprint of Christ’s body and is duly revered, was denounced by John Calvin as superstition during the Protestant Reformation. In the Eighties, a radiocarbon dating led to the widespread consensus that the shroud was medieval forgery.

The Vatican has excommunicated a renegade archbishop who denounced the Pope as a “servant of Satan” and demanded his resignation while rallying conservative opposition to him.

Carlo Maria Viganò, 83, was ousted from the Catholic Church on Friday after being accused of creating a schism in the Church, a sign that Francis is taking on vocal critics who loathe his liberal stance on homosexuality and migration.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Vandals have beheaded a sculpture featuring the Virgin Mary giving birth to Jesus that had been exhibited in the cathedral in the Austrian city of Linz and drawn criticism from some Catholics who said it was blasphemous.

The sculpture had been on view at the St. Mary Cathedral, Austria’s largest, as part of an art installation project on women’s roles, family images and gender equality, the Linz diocese said in a statement. It added that the incident, which occurred on Monday, had been reported to police.

The Vatican’s doctrinal office summoned Archbishop Viganò to appear before an ‘extrajudicial penal trial’ on June 20 over accusations of ‘schism’ owing to a ‘denial of the legitimacy of Pope Francis, rupture of communion with Him, and rejection of the Second Vatican Council.’

Toronto hospital flies ‘pride’ flag behind Sacred Heart of Jesus statue in display called a ‘disgrace’

After one of Canada’s oldest Catholic hospitals placed a “pride” flag above and behind a statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, a concerned local resident said it is a “disgrace” the flag is being flown outside a Catholic facility.

The issue over the “pride” flag concerns St Joseph’s Health Centre, founded in 1921 by the Sisters of St. Joseph and is part of Unity Health Toronto.

This diseased hospital killed my Mom.

h/t Mauser & XC

The 2024 edition of the Notre-Dame de Chrétienté Pilgrimage was a great success once again this year. 18,000 pilgrims flocked to Notre-Dame de Chartres, which can be counted as one of the most famous cathedrals in France. Initially conceived for the faithful attached to the traditional Latin liturgy of the Catholic Church, the ‘phenomenon’ of the Chartres pilgrimage has now been taken on board by the major media as an unmissable event in the French and international Catholic world. 

In a new interview granted to the American television channel CBS, Pope Francis returned to points raised in the doctrinal declaration Fiducia Supplicans, published in December 2023 on the blessing of homosexual couples, and which had given rise to numerous questions inside and outside the Catholic Church. In the interview, he came out clearly and unambiguously against any form of ordination for women, whether as deacons or as priests.

In A Secular Age, Charles Taylor observed that post-Christian society has not created a void of faith but instead a “spiritual supernova”, a nebulous plurality of belief systems from which individuals are free to choose. Without organised religion, ideas of transcendence simply mutate into other forms, be it New Age spirituality, WitchTok, paranormal experiences or UFOs. As their popularity surges, it would seem we have moved beyond rationalism and towards a greater receptivity to the supernatural — a receptivity, perhaps, to “re-enchantment”.

Cardinal Gérald Lacroix of Québec, a senior adviser to Pope Francis, has been accused of sexual assault in a class-action suit in Canada.

The cardinal has been accused by a plaintiff, whose name hasn’t been revealed, of sexually touching her without her consent on different occasions in 1987 and 1988, when she was 17 years old.

The allegations are part of a class-action lawsuit against the Catholic Archdiocese of Québec, authorized in 2022.