‘Renuntiare’, first penance, and some news
The Tuesday Pillar Post
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Hey everybody,
Today is the fifth Tuesday in Ordinary Time, and you’re reading The Tuesday Pillar Post.
Twelve years ago today, Pope Benedict XVI arrived at the Sala del Concistoro in the Vatican’s Apostolic Palace, for a meeting at which numerous curial cardinals were present, held ostensibly to announce the date of an upcoming canonization.
Benedict was 85, he spoke softly, and when he took the microphone, he spoke in Latin. Some attendees likely had trouble hearing him, and if they could hear, most of them mightn’t have understood — the pontiff was reading from a prepared text in Latin, a language in which he had extraordinary competence, but many others had only very basic reading skills.
“Conscientia mea iterum atque iterum coram Deo explorata ad cognitionem certam perveni vires meas ingravescente aetate non iam aptas esse ad munus Petrinum aeque ad ministrandum,” he told them.
Those who could understand heard this:
“After having repeatedly examined my conscience before God, I have come to the certainty that my strengths, due to an advanced age, are no longer suited to an adequate exercise of the Petrine ministry.”
They likely knew what was coming.
After a bit more throat-clearing, Benedict got to it:
“Quapropter bene conscius ponderis huius actus plena libertate declaro me ministerio Episcopi Romae Successoris Sancti Petri, mihi per manus Cardinalium die 19 aprilis MMV commisso renuntiare ita.”
The room was basically silent, as the cardinals in the room worked out the Latin. But renuntiare likely stood out:
“For this reason, and well aware of the seriousness of this act, with full freedom I declare that I renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome, Successor of Saint Peter, entrusted to me by the Cardinals on April 19, 2005.”
Cardinal Angelo Sodano, dean of the College of Cardinals, offered a prepared response, coming in Italian:
“We have heard you with a sense of loss and almost disbelief. In your words we see the great affection that you have always had for God’s Holy Church, for this Church that you have loved so much. …. Of course, the stars always continue to shine and so will the star of your pontificate always shine among us. We are near to you, Holy Father, and we ask you to bless us.”
It was the first papal resignation in 600 years. It launched a new papacy, and arguably, a new era in ecclesiastical history. We’re too close to it now to be able to unpack entirely its meaning. And astute Church-watchers are of mixed mind about whether it was a good idea.
But we should know, at least from where I sit, that the papal resignation was a decision borne of extraordinary prayer. Benedict XVI was not perfect — he had ample shortcomings, including the administrative ones which embroiled his papacy before it ended. But no one can doubt that he was a deeply prayerful disciple of Jesus Christ, and that he believed resigning was what God wanted from him.
We should pray for his soul today, we should pray for the Church, we should pray for the pope, and we should pray that the kind of discipleship he modeled — faith, and intellect, worship, and culture — will flourish in the Church, so that the world will know disciples like that one.
The news
First, it’s worth noting that Pope Francis this morning appointed Bishop Edward Weisenburger the next Archbishop of Detroit, relieving the 76-year-old Archbishop Allen Vigneron from office.
Vigneron was part of a clutch of American metropolitan archbishops serving past 75 years old, now down to seven, by my count, with an additional 14 diocesan bishops in office past that age. That will be a lot of turnover in the months to come — and one more U.S. metropolitan see is rumored to be filled even this week.
Episcopal appointments are complicated, there is almost never “one reason” why a particular bishop was appointed to a particular see, and trying to read the tea leaves — without someone inside the process to break it down — is usually something of a fool’s errand.
Still, I expect it will be noted this week that Weisenburger-to-Detroit is the first American bishop appointment since the inauguration of President Donald Trump, and that Weisenburger was the guy who in 2018 floated the idea that federal ICE agents involved in separating families might be subject to canonical penalties — and his appointment comes on the same day Pope Francis sent a letter to U.S. bishops, responding directly to the Trump/Vance administration on immigration.
Again, I think it would be foolish to say (without more information than I have) that Weisenburger was appointed to Detroit, or was the first appointment of the Trump II administration, because of these things. But they might elucidate the kinds of bishops who will become metropolitans in the months to come.
I suspect we’ll get more data points soon enough.
(If you’re wondering or quibbling: Yes, Bishop Joe Vasquez was appointed to Galveston-Houston on Jan. 20, the day of the Trump inauguration. But appointments are made at Roman noon, well ahead of the presidential transfer of power, which makes Detroit the U.S. diocesan appointment of the Trump II era.)
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The Pillar broke the news Friday that the next National Eucharistic Congress is expected to take place in 2029 — four years earlier than the date floated by chairman Bishop Andrew Cozzens at the 2024 Eucharistic Congress.
Congress CEO Jason Shanks told The Pillar Friday that the decision to hold the next national gathering in 2029 was made “in consultation with the bishops,” while sources close to the bishops’ conference told The Pillar that a voice vote on the prospect of a 2029 Congress was taken during an executive session of the USCCB meeting last November, and that a task force of bishops was established to work on the event.
The push to increase lay involvement is inspired by Germany’s controversial synodal way, which passed a resolution in 2022 calling for greater inclusion of “the people of God of the diocesan local church in the appointment of bishops.”
Like, what do you get for the pope who has everything?
Our very own Brit, Luke Coppen, took a look at the history of the royal-papal gift exchange.
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The Pillar broke the news Friday that the USCCB had laid off 50 migration and refugee staffers, largely because of more than $20 million in unpaid invoices to the federal government, for contracted refugee resettlement projects.
In a memo to bishops sent Friday, the conference warned there would be a trickle-down effect, and that Catholic Charities agencies doing resettlement work were also likely to see layoffs.
Well, it didn’t take long.
On Saturday, The Pillar reported that Catholic Charities in the Archdiocese of Galveston had cut more than 20% of its entire staff, because of, a spokesperson told us, “the recent freeze in federal funding.”
Annual reports from Catholic Charities in Galveston-Houston reveal something interesting: In the 2024 fiscal year, the agency reported more than $80 million in government funding, while just four years earlier, the agency had $25.5 million in government funding.
That is a very large increase, very fast — and growth like that has meant a lot of change to Catholic Charities agencies across the country. If Galveston-Houston is a canary in the coal mine, we should now expect to see very significant layoffs at CC agencies across the U.S.
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Do you know the story of Englishman John Bradburne, the man who might become Zimbabwe’s first saint?
If you don’t, you should. Especially because of the unusual politics involved in a country with a tragic history, where race has often played a central role in conflict, whose first beatified Catholic might be a white Englishman.
His supporters say that in his lifetime, Bradburne’s love for suffering people in Zimbabwe transcended the country’s racial divisions.
John Bradburne. Image via The John Bradburne Memorial Society.
And his story is worth reading.
Think this story keeps getting stranger? You don’t know the half of it.
Think that sounds like a mouthful? It is.
And the situation at Seton Hall University, where the recently appointed president stands accused of improperly handling sexual misconduct, is not going away easily in Newark.
That’s why Tobin announced this week hiring a law firm to look into the law firm he hired back in 2018 to look into his university and his seminary.
Handy didn’t believe them. And besides, she didn’t have time to think about it, because she was late for the prison’s 4 p.m. count, and she’d be in trouble if she didn’t make it to her bunk in time.
While Handy sprinted to count to avoid an angry guard, Trump was indeed signing a pardon that would release her that night from prison, for charges stemming from a 2020 “rescue” protest at a DC abortion clinic.
Like a lot of things in Lauren Handy’s life, her pardon made national headlines.
But when she got out of prison, she decided not to jump on a plane, give speeches, and greet the pro-lifers hailing her as a hero.
Instead, Handy went to visit her grandmother’s grave — and to reflect on what she learned in prison about healing, sacrifice, and a journey into an unknown future.
Lauren Handy talked with The Pillar last week about incarceration, pro-life activism, and her own inner healing.
Here’s an excerpt:
We were not expecting me to be incarcerated immediately after the guilty verdict. And I truly felt in that moment that every single thing was taken from me.
One of the things I had to piece back together was my relationship with Jesus and my relationship to the Church.
I started getting into the Word again and started listening to some podcasts, and just learning to trust in his mercy, and to trust in his love...
I wrote a reflection, which I've never published, on holy doubt — on embracing that it's okay not to have all the answers.
The basis of it was in the Gospel of Matthew, right before the Great Commission, it talks about the apostles. It says “they worshiped him, but some doubted.”
And then it immediately goes into the Great Commission.
And I thought to myself: “Here are the apostles. They're worshiping, they're scared, they're uncertain, they're doubting. And yet Jesus gives them the authority, and gives them reassurance, and instead of chastising them, he's giving them authority.”
And it really gave me a sense of comfort, that it's okay that I don't have all the answers right now, and I can relax in that.
By relaxing in that, I was able to reconnect with my spirituality, and then it really flourished and blossomed in federal prison…
I am really glad The Pillar could bring you this interview. I’m glad Lauren Handy talked in-depth with us about her life. And I hope you’ll read the whole thing.
Have mercy on me, a sinner
If I can, I’d like to ask your prayers for my son Davey and his second-grade class tonight, as they attend a “first confession” penance service.
I’m not going to say that Davey will make his first confession tonight, as I think that’s his business and his alone, and if he goes into the box and opts not to confess, I suppose that’s between him and God.
I’m a big believer in keeping internal the matters of the internal forum.
But it is a matter of public record, and I don’t mind sharing, that his class has been preparing for first penance for several months now. And I don’t mind sharing that while Davey started out quite nervous about the whole thing, he told me a few weeks ago that he wasn’t afraid anymore, and he felt more prepared to confess his sins to God.
I tried to keep driving while he told me, and I hoped he wouldn’t see me cry.
It’s a funny thing to watch your little baby boy reflect on his sinfulness. I’ve been trying to emphasize to him that we don’t go to confession because God is mad at us, rather that we confess our sins because God loves us so much that he wants to help, to make us love wholly and entirely, the way he does.
But I’ll confess to you — if you don’t rail me in the comments — that at times, I’m tempted to tell my little son that he doesn’t yet need confession at all. That he’s perfect just the way he is. At times I’m tempted toward a disordered sentimentality about my kid, a desire to protect him from the knowledge that each of us is a sinner, and that each of us will die.
But of course I can’t do that. It isn’t true. And I have to rebuke the temptation. Watching my little boy prepare for confession has brought into focus for me a reality about parenting: I can’t protect him from sin, or wounds, or Satan, or from the eventual existential confrontations he will have with himself.
I can’t spin for him a world where suffering doesn’t exist, or sin isn’t real, because that world isn’t true.
All I can give him is what I know: That Jesus Christ is the healer of our souls, he ties up the wounds, he carries our brokenness on the cross. That we will, indeed, die because of sin, but that death isn’t — because of him — the end of anything.
I can only give my children the knowledge that each of us needs a saviour, and that Dad isn’t him: Jesus Christ is.
A friend of mine pointed out to me recently that my children, all of our children, will need Christ even to heal the wounds that we ourselves have caused for them.
All of that brings into focus the genuine struggle of faith. I’d rather spin for Davey a dream world. I’d rather him tell him he’s doing every single thing just right. I’d rather not have him carry a conscience at all for a few more years.
But he already needs the Lord. I can see that at seven, he knows already when he sins, and he wishes he didn’t.
He experiences already the most basic human experience there is: “I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate,” as St. Paul puts it. “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”
I’ve told him that confession is for Christ to make perfect our faculty for choosing, in and through his perfection. That our sin lets God’s glory shine in our transformation to holiness. That confession will help him to choose the goods he wants — the ones he’s made for.
I’ve told him especially that God loves him so much he went to the cross, and now waits to love him anew in the sacrament of penance.
I hope he remembers that tonight, and that he chooses to ask God for mercy and grace.
In the car afterward, on the way to ice cream, I won’t ask him about it. Confession is between him and God, after all. But I hope he’ll decide to tell me how it went.
Please be assured of our prayers, and please pray for us. We need it.
Yours in Christ,
JD Flynn
editor-in-chief
The Pillar
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Great writing today, JD! You can count on my prayers today for Davey and his classmates. Davey is blessed to have a good man like you as his father.
There's a quote from Fulton Sheen where describes the confessions of nuns as like being stoned to death by popcorn. I'd imagine first confessions from kids is much the same.