Disillusionment in the voting booth
Fr Ed Tomlinson found election day a gloomy experience. “I cannot remember feeling as disillusioned before heading to the voting booth,” he wrote at Father Ed’s Blog. “In more recent elections the problem was a lack of discernible difference between the main parties – now we have difference but both seem broken in different ways.”
The Tories, Fr Tomlinson wrote, “seem in thrall to big business at the cost of the vulnerable. Too often recently I have counselled disabled and vulnerable people, and their relatives, whose lives are looking bleak thanks to very harsh cuts on budgets that support them. How can a nation that affords Trident and war abroad not have enough money to support the genuinely needy? My heart struggles with a Tory vote.”
But Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism is scarcely more appealing. “It is all well and good producing a little red book crammed full of promises – but does anyone honestly believe the money exists for this vision to be realised? History has proved repeatedly that socialism fails and wreaks total havoc on a nation. My head struggles with a Labour vote.”
It’s time for Christians to mobilise and get involved, Fr Tomlinson concluded: we need good people in all the main parties. “Come on, lay people – what are you waiting for? Christians, stand for election..”
Grasping the Trinity and other mysteries
At Ignatius Insight Scoop, Carl E Olson paid tribute to Frank Sheed, a Catholic apologist who wrote (in Karl Keating’s words) “the clearest explanation of the Trinity ever put to paper”. Sheed observed that a religious mystery is not a puzzle, nor is it “something that we can know nothing about: it is only something that the mind cannot wholly know”. Sheed “uses the analogy of an art gallery into which the visitor walks deeper and deeper – never reaching the end but finding the visit to be completely satisfying.”
In Theology and Sanity, Sheed explained that to begin understanding the Trinity. We must distinguish between person and nature. “Nature,” write Olson, “refers to the question: ‘What am I?’, while person answers the question, ‘Who am I?’ ” With this and other distinctions, Sheed has helped “many people” to “know a bit more about the great Mystery of the Triune God”.
The final movement of Bruckner’s faith
At Catholic World Report, Fr Innocent Smith paid tribute to the composer Anton Bruckner. “Bruckner continued to write symphony after symphony in the face of human incomprehension,” he wrote.
In his faith, Bruckner showed the virtue of hope. “‘Dear God, let me get well soon; you see I need my health to finish the Ninth,’ he prayed—but God must have determined that three movements were enough.” Bruckner had “proposed that his Te Deum might suffice as a finale to the Ninth”.
✣Meanwhile…
✣ Pope Francis has a famous fondness for pizza, once saying that his wish was to go out to eat pizza in Rome “without being recognised”.
But the enjoyment of pizza by Church leaders goes back more than a millennium, according to a medieval manuscript.
Author and priest Dr Taylor Marshall, writing on his website, noted that the earliest recorded reference to pizza was from a Latin text written in AD 997. The text said that the Bishop of Gaeta should receive 12 pizzas (duodecim pizze) for both Christmas and Easter. “Here we have the earliest reference to pizza and it includes pizza delivery,”
Dr Marshall wrote.“The first recorded pizza parties (12 pizzas!) go back to the Bishop of Gaeta.”
✣ A priest’s love of old cars has helped to fund vocations in America’s poorest diocese.
Fr Matthew Keller has donated a 1969 Pontiac Firebird Convertible that he refurbished to a raffle for seminarians at the Diocese of Gallup.
Last year, he fixed up and donated a 1972 Chevelle and raised £110,000 for seminarians. The money helped five seminarians start their journey to becoming priests.
✣The week in quotations
He forced his broken body to kneel… What more profound testimony could he give? Cardinal Sarah on St John Paul II and the Blessed Sacrament Sacra Liturgia conference
He’s not picky Papal tailor Raniero Mancinelli on Francis’s simple tastes Crux interview
How many, beginning with Pius XII, took risks to hide Jews? Pope Francis Morning Mass homily
In no way should these norms be seen as punitive Diocese of Lancaster on new norms for Neocatechumenal Way liturgies Clarification
✣Statistic of the week
€36m The profit generated by the Vatican bank last year. It is more than double that of 2015 Source: Vatican bank
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.