Why Do the U.S. Bishops Sound So Unlike Pope Francis? Vinnie Rotondaro Provides Answers

Vinnie Rotondaro

I also want to recommend today Vinnie Rotondaro's examination of why Pope Francis's message of merciful concern for the poor, which is, after all, as old as the gospels, seems to come as such a surprise to so many people, American Catholics included. The reason Francis surprises us, Rotondaro surmises, is that he's so unlike many members of his own hierarchy--the U.S. bishops certainly included:

People Talking: Rush Does Not Heart Francis, Women and Catholic Church, Catholic Hospitals, Dolan and Gays, Vatican Questionnaire

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I've been busy of late counting Samuels and chasing Nathaniels (more on that later, perhaps), and have fallen behind in blog-reading. I've fallen behind in reading blogs that comment on the news more than report it. As I catch up today, I thought I might share with you some of what I've been reading. Many of these pieces provide interesting perspectives on stories we've already discussed here:

Philomena: A Review (of Sorts)

I'd like to recommend to you a movie Steve and I saw on the day after Thanksgiving--Stephen Frears's Philomena, starring Judi Dench. I don't want to say too much about the plot, since I don't want to spoil it for those who haven't yet seen the movie. Many of you will already know that the film recounts the real-life story of an Irish woman, Philomena Lee, who gave birth to a child in one of those homes for unwed mothers run by nuns in Ireland. The little boy was taken from her and sold to a couple in the states, and she spent years searching for her son--the focus of the film's plot.

Jason Berry on Evangelii Gaudium and the Catholic Clerical Sex Abuse Crisis

Jason Berry

Another take on Evangelii Gaudium, this by Jason Berry, who deserves tremendous credit for his persistence in reporting about the Catholic clerical sex abuse crisis long before anyone else dared to write about this: Berry notes that Francis and his pastoral formulation of Catholicism are enjoying great popularity in Europe, where unemployment for Spanish and Greek young people is now at Depression-era levels. But he also points out that the stress on open doors and on the need for a decentralized church which places service to the least among us first on its agenda will cause people to ask questions about how he intends to address the abuse crisis.

The Missed Opportunities of Pope Francis's Evangelii Gaudium

In a statement at his Christian Catholicism site, Jerry Slevin concludes that, with his apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis "missed real opportunities in his Letter, likely intentionally." Jerry writes,

Parsing Cardinal Dolan: Catholic Hierarchy Losing Marriage Equality Battle Because It's about Morality, Not Money

The outgoing leader of the U.S. Catholic bishops, His Eminence Timothy Cardinal Dolan, has just observed that the Catholic bishops (who aren't anti-gay at all) have been "out-marketed" by the gays and their allies in the marriage equality battle. For those who don't follow the bishops closely as they talk about these issues, a bit of parsing may be in order:

Pope Francis's Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium: A Critical Response from a Nobody Who Isn't Even in the Room

When a big religious organization, one with global reach, announces that it's reforming itself, reaching back to its origins and seeking to bring the powerful originating impulse from which it stems into the contemporary world, it's major news. When the Catholic church announces that it's in a reforming return-to-origins mode, as it did at Vatican II and is now doing under Pope Francis, people take notice. And they should do so.