Happy Friday friends,
I have been thinking a lot about the spirituality of futility this week.
As a man of a certain age, with a child a much lesser certain age, I necessarily want two things: to give her the kind of joyful early childhood that will cast a happy shadow the length of her life, and to live to see as much of that life as I can.
As such I have adopted the regular practice of maintaining both our home and myself to a higher level, and with considerably more effort, than I have previously. By some margin, in fact.
The problem with both yard work and physical exercise, though, is that while you will initially see some modestly obvious improvements as you go from “derelict” to “maintained,” everything after that is just trying to stay one step ahead of dandelions and heart attacks.
For some people, that kind of constant repetition, the slow, worthy grinding of effort to keep something going, comes, if not naturally, then at least comfortably.
You know the type, the kind of people who go running “for fun.” Weirdos, basically.
I am not one of those people.
It’s a running gag between me and JD that the easiest way for him to get me on board with an idea is sell me on the contest, the foe — who we are doing it “versus.”
In my own disordered way, I am what you might call a “goal-oriented” person.
But goals like “keep the house from falling over” and “don’t die young” are actually terrible daily motivators. Sure they might prompt someone like me into action or a quick reset, but my anxieties eventually taunt me like the IRA did Mrs. Thatcher after she survived the Brighton bombing — they only have to get lucky once, I have to get away every time.
Of course, the remedy for this is — as with so many things in life — to take myself out of the center. My real goal isn’t actually to preserve a 1950s bungalow into eternity or strive to live forever like one of those creepy tech billionaires. My hope, my vocation, is to tend the flowering life God has planted in the middle of our marriage and, to the best I am able, cultivate the soil into which her roots will grow.
What I want is to make my daughter happy, sure. But what I really want is to give her faith — to model my own in such a way that she can be confident in her Dad’s care for her, but certain of the Father’s love for her.
My job isn’t to hold time or my mortality at bay, but to simply tend the garden around her through as many seasons as I get. The house will only age and break down more. So will I, come to that. But my true motivation isn’t and shouldn’t be to freeze either in time or pretend I can fend off the obviously inevitable.
Rather, if I am doing any of this right, the real progress I should mark isn’t any semblance of staying the same, but to mark the changes that matter.
Anyway, here’s the news.
The News
Pope Leo XIV has criticized a German cardinal’s plans to move forward with blessings for same-sex couples, while urging Catholics to broaden the scope of moral issues under discussion in the Church.
“The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formal blessing of couples, in this case, same-sex couples… in irregular situations,” the pope said in response to questions about plans announced by Cardinal Reinhart Marx of Münich.
“I believe it is very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual issues. We tend to think that when the Church speaks of morality, the only moral issue is a sexual one,” Leo continued. “In reality, I believe there are much larger and more important issues—such as justice, equality, the freedom of men and women, and religious freedom—that should take priority over that particular issue.”
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The bishop of the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham has denied reports of “bullying” and “pressure” from the Vatican to force it’s priests to concelebrate Mass.
The ordinariates, three of which were erected for the pastoral provision of former Anglicans, have the faculty to celebrate the Mass “according to the liturgical books proper to the Anglican tradition, which have been approved by the Holy See.”
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Pope Leo XIV is set to ordain eight new priests for the Diocese of Rome this weekend.
But, while most European dioceses would envy ordaining eight priests in a single year, it’s one of the smallest Roman ordination cohorts on record, after just six new priests were ordained in 2020 and 2017, and just five in 2011.
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Local Catholic bishops and Vatican officials were watching closely as Hungarians went to the polls earlier this month in a pivotal election that saw the government of Viktor Orbán removed from power after more than a decade and a half.
Orbán invested heavily in relations with the local Church and Rome during his 16 years in power, while radically reshaping Hungary’s institutions. And there has been no shortage of commentary about what his election defeat means for the country, the EU, and the Church.
Of course, much of that commentary is just spinning the result and Orbán’s replacement, the energetic 45-year-old Péter Magyar, to fit this or that narrative.
Instead of more of that, Luke Coppen this week brings you the definitive analysis of the election and what it means — and what we don’t actually know.
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The SSPX this week released the names of the men the society intends to consecrate as bishops this summer without a pontifical mandate — essentially giving the names of aspiring soon-to-be-schismatics.
In a guest column this week, Kevin Tierney discusses how, even for those sympathetic to the society’s liturgical sensibilities, they seem to “have fundamentally misread the moment we find ourselves in.”
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Vatican City prosecutor Alessandro Diddi became the focus of international attention again this week, though this time for reasons unrelated his controversial attempts to prosecute the Vatican financial crimes trial.
Instead, the city state’s chief prosecutor appeared to revive the Benevacantist conspiracy theory, writing to an Italian lawyer to inform him that an investigation is underway into a complaint that the last pontiff but one’s resignation was invalid.
I know, I know.
How is it possible that in 2026 we are still talking about this ludicrous conspiracy theory?
And what could possibly compel the public prosecutor of the Vatican city state to open an investigation into an absurd allegation which has nothing to do with his office?
Well, we have an explainer for you which, I would dearly love to say, will put the whole nonsense to rest once and for all. But let’s be honest, there’s no convincing some people of the obvious, is there?
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A question of time
Last week, lawyers for Libero Milone, the former and first auditor general of the Vatican, filed arguments at the Court of Cassation — the supreme court of the city state — asking for a hearing in their last avenue of appeal.
Milone, along with the family of his deceased former deputy, Feruccio Pannico, are still seeking damages for wrongful dismissal over their 2017 ouster from office. They were, for those unfamiliar, detained by city state gendarmes for hours, interrogated, and threatened with criminal prosecution for espionage unless they resigned.
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, sostituto at the time, took credit for the events, telling press that he’d ordered the auditors’ detention and coerced resignations because they had been “spying” on his private financial affairs. Those would be the same private financial affairs that got the cardinal convicted of embezzlement and other crimes, a conviction currently being appealed.
The substance of their most recent filing at the Court of Cassation is part of a back and forth with lawyers from the Secretariat of State over time limits for appeals and counter-appeals, and who missed what deadlines, or didn’t, and who has standing before the court.
I could parse the back and forth for you but, in my opinion, the Milone case is at an interesting inflection point, and the arguments about “useful time,” court recesses and exact days on which who handed what by whom are just the set dressing for the drama.
From what I can read, it seems like the judges at the Court of Cassation, a four-judge panel of two cardinals and two lay judges led by Cardinal Matteo Zuppi, could take a pretty free hand to rule as they like, at least at this preliminary stage — choosing to admit the appeal or not and citing whosoever arguments they prefer. The truth is that there will be little outside scrutiny of the decision either way, and ultimately no way to challenge their decision.
But, and I want to phrase this carefully here, I think that latitude isn’t likely to turn into total discretionary freedom for the judges, so much as a malleable framework for something else.