The Patristic Institute Augustinianum wrote to correct me. There will be no conference of European cosmetic surgeons at the Vatican’s Patristic Institute Augustinianum. It was a hoax. And I fell for it. Mea maxima culpa. I am chagrined for having let myself be taken in. Now I really am blushing. I allowed my distaste for this grotesque pontificate to get the better of me.     Alexandros Bader does, indeed, practice cosmetic/aesthetic gynecology. The American Academy of Anti-Aging Medicine, a controversial non-profit with an international membership, cites him as a “world class surgeon” who presents vaginal enhancement techniques to other surgeons and trainees at conferences and symposia around the globe. Continue Reading

Many are called but few are chosen. There are sayings of Christ which suggest that the Church he came to establish will always be a minority affair. (Edward Norman)

Edward Norman has been on my mind recently. At seventy eight, he belongs to that generation of scholar-priests we cannot afford to lose. Not now. Better known in Britain than here, he has had a long, distinguished career as an historian, an academic, and a priest of the Church of England. Among his ecclesial credits, is Dean of Chapel, Christ Church College, Canterbury and, later, Canon Chancellor of York Minster. Continue Reading

The touted Year of Mercy has just begun and already I am tired of it. Not of mercy itself—never that. I am just bone-weary of the hawking of this self-conscious, arbitrary, lumbering thing. Suddenly forgiveness is on discount, a high quality item available at bargain prices for a limited time only. For twelve months, the Church becomes an outlet mall designed to broaden its customer base. Narrowing the gap between the Church and its competitors for consumer satisfaction is the obvious objective. Continue Reading

The descent of my Church into spectacle is a sorrow to behold. Nothing is more unedifying—repellent, really—than the lust of this pontificate for circus. We are under the Roman big top now, led by the Man in White and his retinue of jiggling dromedaries on the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. One menagerie follows another, with Cardinal Ravasi’s Pontifical Council for Culture having rehearsed at last year’s Venice Biennale. It is show time in Rome.  The elephantine extravaganza of our Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy debuts tomorrow evening, December 8, with a sensory blitz in service to the Vatican’s own image of itself as the nonpareil of human kindness and meteorological savvy. Continue Reading