Church politics

Cecilia's Funeral & Theology of the Beaten Dog

  We wake up every day to signs of a civilization in free fall. Cratering with it is the moral authority of the Roman Church under the captaincy of Pope Francis. One signal in particular stands out: last month’s funeral circus at St. Patrick’s Cathedral for transgender activist, prostitute, and sex-worker advocate, Cecilia Gentili. The entire production exhaled the rancid breath of Bergoglian accompaniment Much has already been said about the funeral (see here, here, here, and elsewhere). What has not been said is any recognition of the thing for what it was: an act of war. Continue Reading
Pro-Palestinian Zealotry & Betrayal of The West

The West is betrayed by its own children. Since October 7, what we have seen in our streets and on campuses—the pro-Palestinian zealotry—is betrayal by those who are themselves the products of Western civilization. And have been schooled in its morbid addiction to cultural guilt. No one comes to Studio Matters for political discussion. There are mountains of that elsewhere. It is not my forte. But what we are witnessing in Israel today—and by portent here at home— looms larger than politics. Continue Reading
Lepanto, Prayer, & The Game of Martyrs

Yesterday, October 27, was the day Pope Francis specified as a day of prayer for peace. My local parish, unencumbered by desire for moral clarity, invited all parishioners to a noon Mass followed by a special rosary for peace—in the abstract. Refusal to take sides burlesques the famed events of 1571 when Christendom kept churches open and prayed the rosary during the Battle of Lepanto. Yes, Pope Pius V enjoined all Christians to pray. But not for peace. He called them to pray that the Holy League would defeat the formidable Ottoman fleet. Continue Reading
St. Catherine writing

Unraveling the cat’s cradle of Catherine of Siena’s “writings” yields a twisty path into the politics of saint-making. The Saint Catherine of popular imagination is a composite of biography and invention. Glossed by shared cultural assumptions and aims, the hybrid is taken as historic. Idealization and legend are cherished as fact. Referring to Catherine’s productivity as writings is the customary way of naming it. Categorized among medieval women writers, the saint is sometimes depicted at a writing desk with pen in hand. Continue Reading
Relics: Lives and Legends

Fra Filippo’s resplendent Madonna della Cintola, in the previous post, sent me to a favorite passage in The Waning of the Middle Ages. Johan Huizinga‘s portrait of the linchpins of the medieval world—the ideas that bound together religion, art, and literature—has a few things to say about relics. The significance of them to the culture that embraced them is an integral part of medieval civilization.
The distinctly corporeal conception of the saints was accentuated by the veneration of their relics, not only permitted by the Church but forming an integral part of religion.
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