Gaza

Fernandez & Pizzaballa: Soft Porn v. Hardcore

In every age, the levers of power are worked with equal ambition by Church and state. Members of both assemblies inhabit the moral imagination of their time; both breathe the same compromised air. Self-justified worthies gerrymander realities without apology. They confer high awards on finesse in dissembling. Language obfuscates; clarity is penalized. Two contemporary parallels come to mind, one ecclesial, the other secular. During the COVID-19 panic, the CDC gave the word vaccine a makeover. It tweaked language in order to sell the public on an inadequately tested gene therapy being used as if it were a vaccine in the traditional sense that Edward Jenner might recognize. Continue Reading
The Descent of Michael Matt

Has Michael Matt, self-selected exemplar of authentic Catholicism, become a casualty of self-regard? He presents himself as a Braveheart gathering the clans—that chosen Catholic remnant—for progress toward a resurgent Christendom. But the illusion draws on a mottled identity that does little justice to historic reality or contemporary history. And none to the house of Israel from which Jesus came. Matt has been an effective critic of the disordered Bergoglian pontificate. It is all the more unsettling, then, to see him veer into a quasi-apology for Hamas. Continue Reading
Burning Jews (14th C.)

Moral equivalence is in Rome’s saddle. The Vatican has forgotten the moral necessity of praying to win. Does the concept of victory over Islam, that darling of the interfaith crowd, make our clergy uncomfortable? It certainly seems so. Yesterday, October 21, was the second Saturday after Hamas’ onslaught against Israel. My local parish e-bulletin arrived in the morning with this bit of uplift:
I was deeply moved to hear that the Latin Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem offered himself as an exchange for the children hostages held by Hamas.
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