The conversion of an Episcopalian minister
At workingthebeads.com, Jonathan Mitchican announced that he will be joining the Catholic Church. “In many ways I feel very sad,” he admitted. He has served as an Anglo-Catholic priest, has been married and has baptised his children in an Episcopal church.
Mitchican had tried to resist, but “the more I struggled against this calling, the more calmly and consistently the Lord repeated it.”
There is a difference, he wrote, “between reading St Thomas Aquinas and being in communion with St Thomas Aquinas. There is a difference between knowing that a common baptism unites us as brothers and sisters in Christ and actually seeing the footprint of that in history. There is a difference between loving the tradition of the Church, even trying very hard to apply that tradition to new circumstances, and recognising my place as just one sailor on a sea of tradition that I cannot control but that will always carry me home.”
The meaning of Jesus’s words about judging
“Do not judge, or you too will be judged.” At his Patheos blog, Fr Dwight Longenecker asked how we can live out this Gospel teaching. Jesus’s target was the “self-righteous religious people”, as well as “an ancient and immature trick: I make myself feel better by putting someone else down.” But since the verse is sometimes abused, it’s worth interpreting it in the light of another of Jesus’s teachings: “Do not judge by appearances, but make righteous judgments.”
In some complex situations, “we are not to make judgments based on appearances only, but to work carefully and accompany the person as they seek the Lord and seek reconciliation with the Church.” But some situations, Fr Longenecker said, are less complex. Sometimes, it is not only permissible, but a duty “to recognise certain sins as mortal sins and call others to repentance so that they might receive forgiveness.
“And the first person we call to account is always the person we see in the mirror.”
The transhumanists’ error about humanity
At First Things, Wesley Smith took a look at the strange world of the transhumanists. This movement “is all the rage among the nouveau riche of Silicon Valley, who are investing hundreds of millions of dollars into research”. Part of their aim is to use technology to make humans more intelligent: one transhumanist entrepreneur says intelligence is “the most precious and powerful resource in existence”.
But what, Smith asked, about love? That seems a more important resource. And “ The people among us who are most innately capable of love – at least, in the full sense described by St Paul – are those with Down syndrome. Every person I have ever met with that genetic condition is better than I am because of his or her greater capacity to love.” The transhumanists should think again if they want to improve our species.
✣ The Dutch king and queen picked up a 400-year-old heirloom during their trip to the Vatican last week. The item in question was their ancestor William of Orange’s stick, or baton, lost during the 16th-century Dutch war of independence against Spanish rule.
King Willem-Alexander and Queene Maxima received the baton from Fr Arturo Sosa Abascal, the Jesuit superior general, following a meeting with Pope Francis.
The baton, lost during the Battle of Mookerhide in 1574, had been kept in a Jesuit convent in Spain. It will now go on display at the Dutch military museum in Soesterberg.
✣ Catholics in Manila are celebrating their cardinal’s birthday by giving blood.
Cardinal Tagle turned 60 last week and a blood collection drive was organised in honour of the occasion. Fr Sanny de Claro, archdiocesan director of human resource development, told ucanews.com that employees of the archdiocese chose blood as a gift because it symbolises life.
“I think the best gift is to help save or extend somebody’s life, that’s why we have this blood donation drive,” Fr de Claro said. “Through this, we also want to show the cardinal that we treasure life.”
The blood drive was organised with the Philippine Red Cross.
Heroism, courage and dedication
Spanish Minister of the Interior, Juan Ignacio Zoido
At a ceremony for Ignacio Echeverria, A Catholic who died defending a woman in the London Bridge attacks
Collateral damage of an earlier Brexit?
Archbishop Mark Coleridge of Brisbane on Ss John Fisher and Thomas More
Twitter
Debate… tends to overlook … ethical judgment
Cardinal Peter Turkson says cannabis use is unethical, as is using other drugs
Vatican statement
Astonishing and appalling
Clara Watson, Life charity, on the BMA’s vote to back the decriminalisation of abortion
Statement
29.6
Percentage of Australians who have ‘no religion’, up from 16% in 2001
Source: Census
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
Areas of Catholic Herald business are still recovering post-pandemic.
However, we are reaching out to the Catholic community and readership, that has been so loyal to the Catholic Herald. Please join us on our 135 year mission by supporting us.
We are raising £250,000 to safeguard the Herald as a world-leading voice in Catholic journalism and teaching.
We have been a bold and influential voice in the church since 1888, standing up for traditional Catholic culture and values. Please consider donating.