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Happy Friday friends,
There’s news again this week, and much of it serious. But before we get to that I want to start with something decidedly not serious — though not at all unserious — to lighten the mood.
Apparently a group of American Catholics calling themselves Amici Vaticani have set up a site to crowd source money to create a papal tiara for Pope Leo. It was a longstanding custom back in the day for the home diocese of a newly elected pope to take up a collection to create a tiara for their local boy made good, and this group wants to revive the tradition.
The plan is to create a traditional looking piece of papal headgear with appropriate references to the historic election of the first American pope: incorporating red, white and blue gems, corn stalks and similar stylistic references.
Of course, the world being overrun with relentless killjoys and po-faced crypto-Puritans, there has been a predictable chorus from the humorless chiding classes online, ridiculing the idea as an anachronistic waste of money which could be better spent on a more worthy cause, presumably determined by them. I recall Judas making a similar argument about a jar of expensive perfume.
Anyway, it is true to say that tiaras rather fell out of fashion after Vatican Council II. St. Paul VI was the last to have the triple crown formally put on his head as it was whispered in his ear that he should know himself to be ruler of the world, father of princes and kings, and vicar of Christ on earth.
John Paul I dispensed with the flummery of the coronation ceremony in favor of the inauguration liturgy we use now, and Benedict XVI went a step further in removing the triple crown from his papal coat of arms altogether in favor of a mitre with three bands representing the episcopal triple munera of teaching, sanctifying, and governing.
I don’t suppose any of that is coming back, though I rather thought Benedict’s heraldic choice was a sad one. Certainly no one expects or wants Leo, the first pope from the US of A, to adopt the gilded trappings of theocratic monarchy, even if he does happen to run one.
The point of such a gift, as I see it, isn’t that the pope would start wearing it around the house — though it wouldn’t kill him to bust it out on the feast of the Chair of St. Peter, that could be fun. The point is to make a beautiful thing to mark an historic event. It’s about artistic monuments to history; these are the sort of things we actually are rather grateful for when we get to look at them.
Case in point, Paul VI’s tiara, minted for him by the faithful of Milan, currently resides in the crypt of the basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception here in Washington to the daily edification of pilgrims and visitors.
I cannot imagine what kind of cheek-clenching misery guts begrudges a good faith effort to celebrate Leo’s election with something pretty that successive generations can admire simply for its own sake.
The creation of art and artifact as a public act of celebration is a good thing, more than anything else it seems to me to exhibit a spirit of generosity for the future and with the present.
Anyway, here’s the news.
The News
Chaldean Catholic Bishop Emanuel Shaleta was arrested Thursday on multiple counts of embezzlement and money laundering.
The bishop, who leads the Chaldean Catholic eparchy covering the western half of the United States, was arrested by San Diego County Sheriffs at the airport, according to a press release, as he readied to leave the country.
Earlier this week, The Pillar reported that the bishop was due in Rome to discuss allegations of substantial embezzlement and personal misconduct, which we first reported last month.
As of last night, he was being held on $125,000 bail and is, so far as I am aware, the first serving U.S. bishop to be arrested on charges of financial crimes.
You can read the whole story here.
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The bishop with responsibility for Southern Arabia has said that churches remain “open as usual,” amid the ongoing conflict in the Middle East, which has seen Iran respond to strikes by the U.S. and Israel by launching attacks on several other countries in the region.
In an interview with The Pillar, Bishop Paolo Martinelli, OFM Cap., apostolic vicar of Southern Arabia, which includes the UAE, Oman, and Yemen, spoke about the current situation in the vicariate and the Church’s work for peace in the region.
You can read the whole interview here.
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A new book published on Sunday purports to pull back the curtain on the papal conclave which elected Pope Leo XIV last year.
“The Election of Pope Leo XIV” offers details of the four voting rounds which returned Cardinal Robert Prevost as successor to Pope Francis, as well as specific instances within the closely guarded process — including details of the moment an elderly cardinal was discovered to have accidentally left a mobile phone in his pocket during screenings ahead of a session.
The book is the latest in a series of works reporting on the inner deliberations of the papal election process, which is meant to be protected by the strictest levels of legal secrecy in canon law.
As I considered in an analysis this week, the direction of travel over the last three conclaves has been for more and more detail to leak out after the elections. Usually this is pretty harmless though interesting stuff — sometimes even a bit endearing.
But the thing is, the oaths the cardinals swear promise absolute secrecy “regarding everything that in any way relates to the election of the Roman Pontiff and regarding what occurs in the place of the election, directly or indirectly related to the results of the voting.”
Despite the similarly absolute penalties attached to these oaths for violating them, a culture of gossipy tell-alls has emerged.
While nothing let slip so far seems specifically likely to damage the integrity of the process for electing a pope, the thing is you cannot have just a little, or even a lot of absolute secrecy. You either have it absolutely, or you don’t.
So, given we’ve grown into a culture of creeping disregard for that principle, what needs to change — the law or the behavior?
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A new study has presented evidence that Catholicism in Ireland remains relatively robust despite decades of secularization.
The 26-page report, “The Turning Tide? Recent religious trends on the island of Ireland,” concludes that Ireland still has one of the highest weekly Mass attendance rates in Europe, although it has seen a significant decline in Catholic affiliation.
You can read Luke Coppen’s breakdown of the report right here.
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A new canonical law entered into force in Poland this week, imposing financial penalties on clergy and lay personnel who violate Church law.
Under the new law, financial penalties can be imposed for a wide variety of offenses, including disobedience to ecclesiastical authority, misappropriation of Church property, and bribery.
The law was passed by general decree of the bishops’ conference after 2021 reforms to the universal Code of Canon Law by Pope Francis which cleared the way for the reintroduction of financial penalties, with the amount to be set nationally by conferences.
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The General Secretariat of the Synod of Bishops released on Mar. 3 the final reports of two of the synod on synodality’s study groups, focusing on the digital mission and priestly formation.
As you have probably come to expect, the texts can be a little prone to the jargon of synodalese, but as Edgar Beltran reported, that doesn’t mean there isn’t stuff in there worth reading.
You can read his translation into plain English right here.
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Pope Leo offered one of his thankfully now only occasional impromptu press conferences leaving Castel Gandolfo this week.
I am not, and never will be a fan of these events.
I understand that an occasional friendly curbside encounter gives the impression of a kind of openness and accessibility. And it is a reality that, in a globalized media world, Catholics everywhere feel a more immediate connection to the pope — a kind of parasocial pastoral relationship — which simply didn’t exist before the reign of St. John Paul II but is now firmly entrenched in the culture of the Church.
And no one wants to return to a kind of ultra-remote model of the papacy, where the Bishop of Rome is treated as a kind of Delphic oracle. I certainly don’t.
There’s a real and necessary balance to be struck between mystery and personality when a person inhabits an office of millennial importance, and there is much transferable wisdom in the late Queen Elizabeth’s observation that she had to “be seen to be believed.”
Leo making public appearances and having short, spontaneous interactions with people is a good thing. It allows him to provide a kind of tonal context for his writing and, like a shepherd to his flock, attune them to the sound of his voice, the better to hear him when he has something urgent or important to say. Yes to all that.
I just don’t think these exchanges should be with reporters. Ever. Let me explain.