Your note about the Washington Post article irks me—I haven’t read the post for years, but I’m always amazed that supposedly well educated journalists refuse to “get religion”, and feel the need to subtly indicate who the good guys and bad guys are. It’s just such an insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I subscribe to the Pillar, and have given gift subscriptions. I know which side my bread is buttered.
The weird thing is that Michelle Boorstein is no rookie; she’s an experienced religion journalist. But perhaps the temptation of framing everything in left-right categories is too strong for someone working in the nation’s capital.
She's a nice person personally, but her person is also a partisan hack. She sees religion entirely through one grand narrative she fervently believes in, and anything she covers will be through that. Because as John Allen would often point out, even the smartest secular religion reporters have zero clue what they are talking about when they cover an institution that doesn't just subvert those conventions, it long predates those conventions.
RE: SSPX - I pray for everyone involved, in particular the faithful but I think better to stop dragging this out. I understand why prior Popes gave them grace, but I have never understood the favoritism SSPX seems to have garnered as opposed to other similar groups. If they start in with new bishops then either they should be pushed out OR if that is acceptable then let the high church Anglicans who do the same thing into communion.
I disagree about the "social justice" thing (obviously this disagreement is in general and there are many particular exceptions). Among Catholics, you have the "social justice" folks, who are a minority (small minority of churchgoers, less small minority of priests, maybe not a minority of bishops), lean left, and are usually as silent as they can be on abortion and talk about minimum wage, immigration, the environment, and stuff like that. Then you have the much larger group who generally do not care that much about the "social justice" concerns, focus on abortion, and generally support whatever the Republicans are doing even if the Pope disagrees (ie, the Iraq War, immigration concerns, anything environmental). I know there are exceptions, but 90% of the time I think my generalization is right.
I also could not get past that paragraph. It seems rather callous to those people who can no longer attend a TLM because they happen to live in a place not served by the ICKSP or FSSP. I mean, try telling people in Charlotte that Pope Francis gave “ample” allowance for the TLM. That’s absurd.
> "But I also think Pope Leo has made clear that he won’t be blackmailed, coerced, pushed around, or manipulated."
Perks of being from Chicago?
Also, I love the idea of saint-inspired media; it would be awesome if more saint-media was epic and appealed to boys in the way superhero media has/does.
I tried to hang in there in the first season but when Scorcese used the heretical Gospel of Mary in his film on Mary Magdelane I decided that I had had enough. His panel spoke at the end like this was a valid source use in the storyline so I grew suspect of it.
The Pillar should go to the Olympics and tell us about the daily work of the Catholic chaplain at the Olympic Village (or each one of the four Villages in Milano-Cortina’s case).
Traditionally the Olympic Villages have an interfaith center, with 24/7 ministers for each of the 5 most mentioned faiths (athletes, coaches and officials are polled about it), and accredited ministers for many other faiths/denominations who can enter the Village when called by an Olympian. At least that was the rule in Rio, where I volunteered.
On my very first day at the Village, a Saturday, I went to the interfaith center for Mass since I did not know whether my work schedule would allow me to go on Sunday. There I met Father Leandro, who was assigned to the Village by the Rio Archdiocese. He wore a volunteer’s trousers and coat, and the clerical shirt. The Mass had only 3 people: priest, server and me - it was before the start of the Games, most teams had not arrived by then.
I also remember that some activists complained that African-Brazilian religions were not among those with full-time ministers at the Village. They had completely missed the fact that the interfaith center was a service to the athletes, not an exhibit on the religious landscape of the host country. Besides, these religions did have accredited ministers who could enter the Village.
As my wife's patroness is one of the Holy Helpers (St. Catherine of Alexandria), I have been aware of them as long as I've been Catholic. Devotion to them was ubiquitous in English traditional religion before the iconoclastic spasms of Henry VII and his son. There are defaced rood screens all over England that once featured them.
Having said which, I don't think we are helped by hyping folk religion of days past into pseudo-historical mass media projects that inevitably convey more secular values than genuine religious understanding.
I was part of a "Fransiscan" parish for years until I could not take the left leaning stuff (strong support of Dignity, a demonstrative dislike of JP II from early on, support of Nuns on the Bus, having an Anglican female priest give the homily during Mass, among many things, occasional liturgical abuses during Mass) they pushed. I have little positive experiences of this type of activity in my former Fransiscan parish so sadly I have trouble believing that this is not a factor in what is happening in NC. There are things that I am grateful for but I no longer wanted to be associated with their activities.
As a Gen Xer raised on the Superfriends, I wholly support the idea of a 14 Holy Helpers revival, and say, “Hey, Philip Kosloski, this sounds like something for Voyage Comics!”
Cheers for the Vierzhen Heiligen! Note that each has an easily identifiable emblem which makes them good subjects for art. I did a paper decades ago analyzing the group according to the mythological theories of George Dumezil to show that they fit patterns found throughout the cultures of Indo-European speaking peoples, from the Three Musketeers to Kirk-Spock-McCoy.
For over three decades, the Catholic Church has enabled the SSPX’s profitable contradiction: claiming Catholic identity while operating in systematic rebellion against Catholic authority. The SSPX’s entire appeal depends on telling followers they’re still authentically Catholic—their sacraments valid, their eternal destiny secure—while rejecting the authority of diocesan bishops and demanding autonomy to accept only those Church teachings and directives they approve. This works only because the Church has cooperated, sending mixed signals through lifted excommunications, granted faculties, and endless dialogue. Every conciliatory gesture intended to facilitate reconciliation has been pocketed by the SSPX as validation that they’re not really in schism, allowing them to market themselves as the faithful remnant while never actually submitting to what reconciliation requires: acceptance of legitimate Church authority even when it’s inconvenient.
The Church’s decades of ambiguity have accomplished nothing except allowing the SSPX to game institutional patience. They’ve learned that threats can be leveraged, that defiance carries no definitive consequences, and that they can maintain the fiction of being “in dialogue” toward regularization while offering nothing substantive in return. Meanwhile, this enables a situation where the SSPX operates outside diocesan oversight—including on safeguarding—while claiming Catholic validity, teaching followers that obedience to Church authority is optional, and undermining every Catholic community that actually does submit to legitimate governance even when it’s difficult. If the SSPX wishes to be Catholic, the path is clear: submit to authority and operate within canonical structures like everyone else. If they’re unwilling, the Church should stop playing footsie with schism and let canonical consequences finally fall where they may. Clarity is long overdue.
It sure seems to me that it would be rather hypocritical and awkward for Pope Leo to excommunicate the new SSPX bishops because they were not approved by Rome at the same time the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church bishops appointed by the Chinese communist government were also not approved by Rome!
I would tend to agree, and even though the two situations are somewhat different, I don't share JD's opinion that Pope Leo is simply going to give the SSPX an ultimatum and wash his hands of the situation. The Vatican already put out a statement that they will continue to have ongoing talks with the SSPX, so it seems like excommunication is not on the table, at least not yet. And even if SSPX goes through with this without Vatican approval, the automatic excommunications can simply be ignored or waved away, as they did in China.
Maybe Pope Leo will eventually lay down the law and start dealing out some penalties/excommunications, but I have seen no evidence so far that he is going to do this in any situation. He won't threaten the SSPX with excommunication for the same reason that he won't do it for the German bishops - he wants unity, seemingly at any cost, and will most likely continue the endless cycle of "dialogue" and follow the tried and true method that the Vatican has employed over the last decades; putting off any difficult decisions as long as it can be done, forever, if possible. It keeps unity on paper and provides for better optics, which is what the Vatican seems to be most interested in, and I haven't seen any indications from Pope Leo that he wants there to be a notable schism on his watch. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think he will go to any lengths to avoid it, and I think that's what the SSPX is betting on here. It may turn out to be a wise gamble on their part. We shall see.
First, appointment and consecration are two different acts. IIRC the excommunication for unauthorized consecration of a bishop is _latae sententiae_ (automatic) so the pope doesn’t do anything; it is the consecrator who excommunicates himself!
Though that may technically be true it also would mean then that the Chinese bishops are excommunicated but Rome for unknown reasons will not make that status known to Chinese Catholics or to Catholics worldwide, for that matter. Shame on our Church for such an agreement.
The Washington Post, like most mainstream media, is full of lefty liberals who decide on the message they want to convey and then construct the narrative around it. Objectivity and truth are secondary.
Really good PILLAR this week, esp the piece on Charlotte and the Washington Post. Every other article was especially enlightening also. Good job, PILLAR!
Seems like it should be in early winter.
what should?
The blessing of the throats.
true!
Your note about the Washington Post article irks me—I haven’t read the post for years, but I’m always amazed that supposedly well educated journalists refuse to “get religion”, and feel the need to subtly indicate who the good guys and bad guys are. It’s just such an insult to the reader’s intelligence.
Maybe I shouldn’t be surprised. Anyway, I subscribe to the Pillar, and have given gift subscriptions. I know which side my bread is buttered.
The weird thing is that Michelle Boorstein is no rookie; she’s an experienced religion journalist. But perhaps the temptation of framing everything in left-right categories is too strong for someone working in the nation’s capital.
She's a nice person personally, but her person is also a partisan hack. She sees religion entirely through one grand narrative she fervently believes in, and anything she covers will be through that. Because as John Allen would often point out, even the smartest secular religion reporters have zero clue what they are talking about when they cover an institution that doesn't just subvert those conventions, it long predates those conventions.
I miss Terry Mattingly's GetReligion blog so much :(
RE: SSPX - I pray for everyone involved, in particular the faithful but I think better to stop dragging this out. I understand why prior Popes gave them grace, but I have never understood the favoritism SSPX seems to have garnered as opposed to other similar groups. If they start in with new bishops then either they should be pushed out OR if that is acceptable then let the high church Anglicans who do the same thing into communion.
What kind of wonky map identifies San Marino, Andorra, and Monaco, but not Spain, Slovenia, or Bosnia?
I disagree about the "social justice" thing (obviously this disagreement is in general and there are many particular exceptions). Among Catholics, you have the "social justice" folks, who are a minority (small minority of churchgoers, less small minority of priests, maybe not a minority of bishops), lean left, and are usually as silent as they can be on abortion and talk about minimum wage, immigration, the environment, and stuff like that. Then you have the much larger group who generally do not care that much about the "social justice" concerns, focus on abortion, and generally support whatever the Republicans are doing even if the Pope disagrees (ie, the Iraq War, immigration concerns, anything environmental). I know there are exceptions, but 90% of the time I think my generalization is right.
One word:
Ample?
In that he was clear that TC more or less didn't apply to the FSSP.
Again:
Ample?
"Clear"
"More or less"
.... after several months of ambiguity
.... with no mention how this impacts others.
AMPLE?
I get what you're saying (Francis saw reality and realized he couldn't ban it outright), but I'm gonna keep coming back to this:
AMPLE?!
ok, I can see the criticism. any number of words could do there.
I also could not get past that paragraph. It seems rather callous to those people who can no longer attend a TLM because they happen to live in a place not served by the ICKSP or FSSP. I mean, try telling people in Charlotte that Pope Francis gave “ample” allowance for the TLM. That’s absurd.
the paragraph was juxtaposing the fssp and sspx, not a broad commentary on tc or its merits
> "But I also think Pope Leo has made clear that he won’t be blackmailed, coerced, pushed around, or manipulated."
Perks of being from Chicago?
Also, I love the idea of saint-inspired media; it would be awesome if more saint-media was epic and appealed to boys in the way superhero media has/does.
Voyage Comics comes to mind as fulfilling this call!
https://shop.voyagecomics.com/
Did anyone (Pillar staff or other readers) watch the TV movies on Saints, as done by Martin Scorsese? Were they any good?
I tried to hang in there in the first season but when Scorcese used the heretical Gospel of Mary in his film on Mary Magdelane I decided that I had had enough. His panel spoke at the end like this was a valid source use in the storyline so I grew suspect of it.
The Pillar should go to the Olympics and tell us about the daily work of the Catholic chaplain at the Olympic Village (or each one of the four Villages in Milano-Cortina’s case).
Traditionally the Olympic Villages have an interfaith center, with 24/7 ministers for each of the 5 most mentioned faiths (athletes, coaches and officials are polled about it), and accredited ministers for many other faiths/denominations who can enter the Village when called by an Olympian. At least that was the rule in Rio, where I volunteered.
On my very first day at the Village, a Saturday, I went to the interfaith center for Mass since I did not know whether my work schedule would allow me to go on Sunday. There I met Father Leandro, who was assigned to the Village by the Rio Archdiocese. He wore a volunteer’s trousers and coat, and the clerical shirt. The Mass had only 3 people: priest, server and me - it was before the start of the Games, most teams had not arrived by then.
I also remember that some activists complained that African-Brazilian religions were not among those with full-time ministers at the Village. They had completely missed the fact that the interfaith center was a service to the athletes, not an exhibit on the religious landscape of the host country. Besides, these religions did have accredited ministers who could enter the Village.
As my wife's patroness is one of the Holy Helpers (St. Catherine of Alexandria), I have been aware of them as long as I've been Catholic. Devotion to them was ubiquitous in English traditional religion before the iconoclastic spasms of Henry VII and his son. There are defaced rood screens all over England that once featured them.
Having said which, I don't think we are helped by hyping folk religion of days past into pseudo-historical mass media projects that inevitably convey more secular values than genuine religious understanding.
I was part of a "Fransiscan" parish for years until I could not take the left leaning stuff (strong support of Dignity, a demonstrative dislike of JP II from early on, support of Nuns on the Bus, having an Anglican female priest give the homily during Mass, among many things, occasional liturgical abuses during Mass) they pushed. I have little positive experiences of this type of activity in my former Fransiscan parish so sadly I have trouble believing that this is not a factor in what is happening in NC. There are things that I am grateful for but I no longer wanted to be associated with their activities.
As a Gen Xer raised on the Superfriends, I wholly support the idea of a 14 Holy Helpers revival, and say, “Hey, Philip Kosloski, this sounds like something for Voyage Comics!”
Cheers for the Vierzhen Heiligen! Note that each has an easily identifiable emblem which makes them good subjects for art. I did a paper decades ago analyzing the group according to the mythological theories of George Dumezil to show that they fit patterns found throughout the cultures of Indo-European speaking peoples, from the Three Musketeers to Kirk-Spock-McCoy.
Now that’s interesting. Would be interested in reading that paper. JD?
I would be too!
It would require finding it first. Let's pray to St. Anthony!
For over three decades, the Catholic Church has enabled the SSPX’s profitable contradiction: claiming Catholic identity while operating in systematic rebellion against Catholic authority. The SSPX’s entire appeal depends on telling followers they’re still authentically Catholic—their sacraments valid, their eternal destiny secure—while rejecting the authority of diocesan bishops and demanding autonomy to accept only those Church teachings and directives they approve. This works only because the Church has cooperated, sending mixed signals through lifted excommunications, granted faculties, and endless dialogue. Every conciliatory gesture intended to facilitate reconciliation has been pocketed by the SSPX as validation that they’re not really in schism, allowing them to market themselves as the faithful remnant while never actually submitting to what reconciliation requires: acceptance of legitimate Church authority even when it’s inconvenient.
The Church’s decades of ambiguity have accomplished nothing except allowing the SSPX to game institutional patience. They’ve learned that threats can be leveraged, that defiance carries no definitive consequences, and that they can maintain the fiction of being “in dialogue” toward regularization while offering nothing substantive in return. Meanwhile, this enables a situation where the SSPX operates outside diocesan oversight—including on safeguarding—while claiming Catholic validity, teaching followers that obedience to Church authority is optional, and undermining every Catholic community that actually does submit to legitimate governance even when it’s difficult. If the SSPX wishes to be Catholic, the path is clear: submit to authority and operate within canonical structures like everyone else. If they’re unwilling, the Church should stop playing footsie with schism and let canonical consequences finally fall where they may. Clarity is long overdue.
It sure seems to me that it would be rather hypocritical and awkward for Pope Leo to excommunicate the new SSPX bishops because they were not approved by Rome at the same time the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Church bishops appointed by the Chinese communist government were also not approved by Rome!
I would tend to agree, and even though the two situations are somewhat different, I don't share JD's opinion that Pope Leo is simply going to give the SSPX an ultimatum and wash his hands of the situation. The Vatican already put out a statement that they will continue to have ongoing talks with the SSPX, so it seems like excommunication is not on the table, at least not yet. And even if SSPX goes through with this without Vatican approval, the automatic excommunications can simply be ignored or waved away, as they did in China.
Maybe Pope Leo will eventually lay down the law and start dealing out some penalties/excommunications, but I have seen no evidence so far that he is going to do this in any situation. He won't threaten the SSPX with excommunication for the same reason that he won't do it for the German bishops - he wants unity, seemingly at any cost, and will most likely continue the endless cycle of "dialogue" and follow the tried and true method that the Vatican has employed over the last decades; putting off any difficult decisions as long as it can be done, forever, if possible. It keeps unity on paper and provides for better optics, which is what the Vatican seems to be most interested in, and I haven't seen any indications from Pope Leo that he wants there to be a notable schism on his watch. Quite the opposite, in fact. I think he will go to any lengths to avoid it, and I think that's what the SSPX is betting on here. It may turn out to be a wise gamble on their part. We shall see.
First, appointment and consecration are two different acts. IIRC the excommunication for unauthorized consecration of a bishop is _latae sententiae_ (automatic) so the pope doesn’t do anything; it is the consecrator who excommunicates himself!
Though that may technically be true it also would mean then that the Chinese bishops are excommunicated but Rome for unknown reasons will not make that status known to Chinese Catholics or to Catholics worldwide, for that matter. Shame on our Church for such an agreement.
The Washington Post, like most mainstream media, is full of lefty liberals who decide on the message they want to convey and then construct the narrative around it. Objectivity and truth are secondary.
Really good PILLAR this week, esp the piece on Charlotte and the Washington Post. Every other article was especially enlightening also. Good job, PILLAR!