Happy Friday friends,
I know we’ve had an encyclical this week, and the news of the Church hasn’t stopped either. And we’ll get to all of that in a moment.
But I wanted to talk about something else, which has been the real focus of my week. In recent days, I lost a friend. Catherine, Miss Catherine to me.
We were, in the eyes of the world, probably pretty unlikely friends. I am who I am and she was, at the time of her death last week, an 84-year-old lady — in the old school, loaded sense of the word — and a lifelong resident of her particular corner of Southeast Washington D.C.
I’ve known Miss Catherine for fifteen odd years and she was always an outsized character, a one-woman weather front of personality and emotion; possessed of a warmth and love that could be almost stifling in its embrace, though it could, when her sense of propriety was offended, break into a thunderclap of righteous correction.
I was asked earlier this week how I ought to be styled in the order of service, since I was serving as a pallbearer. Did I want to be listed as “Edward” or “Eddie,” the latter being how she used to address me. “She only ever called me Eddie, so use that,” I said.
“Well, I heard her call you a lot of things,” I was reminded. And it is true, many of them were memorably colorful. “She did,” I agreed, “but she called me all of them with love.”
Miss Catherine loved me with a generosity and fullness which, if anything, was only multiplied for my daughter after her birth, whom she jealously referred to only and simply as “my girl.” While imparting parenting advice to me over the years, she retold the whole history of her neighborhood, which has changed much through the decades but over which she once exercised an almost jurisdictional sway, and among whose children she was, to her satisfaction, known as “The Warden.”
In her latter years, as age and health took their toll and stays in hospitals and rehab facilities became more frequent, she’d complain often about the execrable food, which was a kind of mortification of the flesh all its own. I made it my special mission to try to smuggle her in brisket, ribs, mac and cheese, and anything else I could get past the orderlies.
To her annoyance, I never made it through with a beer.
But by far her greatest complaint and strongest desire was always to go home. She finally made it back this last time, dying within minutes of passing her front door. It was, many of us remarked, something of a double homecoming, and clearly a mutual fruit of her indomitable spirit and the Father’s grace.
Often, she’d relate painful episodes, to be sure, but never once did I hear her voice regrets, properly speaking — and never did I hear from her a word’s empty piety or polite hypocrisy. Her life was what it was, in all its shades, and there was, in the end, nothing left in her but gratitude and an impatient desire to go home.
I miss Miss Catherine keenly, we all do. She was a third grandmother to me, and to my wife and daughter. But for all the stories and names and advice, what she imparted to me most vividly was the virtue of a life lived fully and with thanks.
She departed amid love and full of faith. What else is there to aspire to?
Here’s the news.
The News
The U.S. Supreme Court announced this week that it will not take up a petition from the USCCB, which requested the dismissal of a lawsuit alleging fraud over the conference’s promotion of the Peter’s Pence collection.
The lawsuit stretches back to 2020, following media reports that the collection, which is widely viewed as principally for the support of the poor and needy across the globe, is actually primarily used to fund Vatican administration.
What exactly is the lawsuit alleging? And what’s the controversy with Peter’s Pence? The Pillar explains it all right here.
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Pope Leo has created a commission to administer a Vatican-owned hospital founded by Padre Pio that allegedly accrued a €250 million debt.
That’s a quarter of a BILLION euros. In debt.
The Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza is a large hospital in San Giovanni Rotondo founded by Padre Pio in 1956 and overseen by the Vatican Secretariat of State.
So how did that happen, and what does the hospital say? Read all about it here.
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The Diocese of Salford in England announced this month the opening of the canonization cause for Pedro Ballester Arenas, who died of cancer in 2018 at 21 years of age.
Ballester was born in Manchester to a Spanish family and asked for admission as an Opus Dei numerary in 2013, receiving a cancer diagnosis just months later.
During his illness, Ballester became known for his cheerfulness and apostolic zeal, helping dozens return to the faith, receive baptism, or embrace their vocations — while still remaining a regular young man who enjoyed fishing, whisky, and tennis, according to those who knew him.
What is it about Pedro Ballester that stood out? How did he gain his reputation for holiness?
The Pillar spoke with his family, friends, and priests who knew him, to find out.
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Whatever else happens this summer, Pope Leo is certain to face a test of resolve in the face of the Switzerland-based Society of St. Pius X, and the group’s commitment to consecrate new bishops despite a papal prohibition against the move.
To some, the pope’s SSPX showdown raises questions about obedience and authority in a hierarchical Church. But to others it raises questions about how Leo will deal with the messy remnant of his predecessor’s effort to curtail the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, especially amid its apparently growing popularity among younger Catholics in the West.
Addressing that situation will be more than a test of resolve for Leo. It will be a test of the pontiff’s canonical and pastoral creativity, in the face of a circumstance which has shown itself unwilling to simply go away.
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Speculation began soon after Pope Leo’s election last year about the appointments the pontiff would soon make within the structures of the Roman curia.
But while anticipation mounted in Leo’s early months, the pope demonstrated soon that he would make changes slowly. And even while there were at his election several curial prefects beyond the customary retirement age of 75 or with soon-to-expire periods of services, the pontiff has appointed to date only three new prefects, and a new papal chief of staff.
So who is next to cycle out of Vatican senior leadership? Edgar Beltran takes a look right here.
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A formerly high-ranking Russian Orthodox bishop was released without charge this week, two days after he was arrested by Czech police on suspicion of drug possession.
Czech authorities released Metropolitan Hilarion (Alfeyev) and an unnamed driver and camera operator May 26, as investigators await the results of laboratory tests on white substances seized from his car May 24 during a vehicle inspection near the town of Unhošť in the Central Bohemian Region.
Hilarion, once seen as a potential successor to Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill, has denied possessing or transporting illegal drugs. The Moscow Patriarchate expressed support for the bishop, saying the arrest raised questions “regarding legality and observance of procedural norms.”
The metropolitan has since returned to Russia, with some suggesting he “fled” the country, and with others saying he’d been “recalled to Russia” — which sounds ominous.
A modest proposal, explained
In his newsletter Tuesday, JD offered a thought ahead of the looming episcopal consecrations announced by the SSPX.
M’colleague posited that there would seem to be no ecclesiological or canonical obstacle to the Bishop of Rome exercising his authority to erect a legal bar ad validitatem to render the consecrations without sacramental effect.
As a canonical thought experiment, which is explicitly what JD framed it as, it seemed a very reasonable one to me. I was expecting a lively discussion to follow — and it has.
Though I have been surprised by the number of people who, instead of debating the advisability of the idea, which I think is very much up for debate, instead decided to make a stab at debunking his premise, which seems pretty solid to me.
So, in the interests of public education, let me walk you through exactly why and how I think Pope Leo could, if he wanted to, move to impede the validity of the SSPX consecrations.