Just Catholic

Now it's Vienna's Cardinal Christoph Schönborn who's wading in hot water. Seems he and a group of Austrian priests and deacons got a full blast of papal steam on Holy Thursday.

The shrill Roman whistle sounded: No women or married men will be ordained.

If you've never heard of the Freedom From Religion Foundation, it could be your town does not have a Christmas crèche, or your state does not have an annual day of prayer, or you do not read The New York Times.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation wants folks to quit the Catholic church.

There are several issues in the ongoing saga of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). While the problem is painted as a collision of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' views on religious liberty and the federal government's stated belief that "contraceptive services" are preventive health care, it's more than just that.

About a year ago, I published an open letter to Pope Benedict XVI asking him to make a decision on restoring women to the diaconate. I didn't hear back.

Priest-pederasts, -philanderers and -embezzlers continue to make the news. Parishes and schools are closing all over. Ordinations -- at least in the United States -- are beyond way down. The public relations profile of U.S. bishops seems fixed on same-sex marriage, abortion and the "new evangelization."

Are U.S. bishops carrying the brief for women deacons to their ad limina meetings in Rome?

They may be. The issue is picking up speed.

The Cleveland-based activist group FutureChurch has organized its members nationwide to pay pre-ad limina calls on bishops. The FutureChurch brief includes restoring women to their traditional place in the diaconate. In addition, a national Books-to-Bishops campaign has sent copies of the newly published Women Deacons: Past, Present, Future (by Santa Clara Professor Gary Macy, Monterey Deacon William T. Ditewig and me) to 135 U.S. diocesan bishops to date.

We tend to forget the end of Luke's account of the annunciation. We remember the angel, we remember Mary's fiat, but that last line gets buried in gauzy imaginings of gold and light.

"And then the angel left her."

The sentence is stunning. In the Scripture story, a young girl has graciously, generously, hopefully accepted news of enormous consequence. Then the angel takes off.

The webcasted November meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops held the excitement of a gathering of accountants discussing actuarial tables. You can catch reruns on the USCCB website.

Even so, the 300 or so bishops, most over the age of 60, seemed to enjoy their Baltimore sojourn.

I know you know about Moammar Gadhafi's death. Who could miss the news? The major players rushed to the world stage with their opinions. The Vatican issued a statement.

Wang Yue died around the same time as Gadhafi. What have world leaders and the Vatican said about Wang Yue?

Maybe I missed the memo, but what kind of logic makes abortion part of humanitarian aid packages? A recent New York Times' editorial "Humanitarian Aid for Rape Victims" argues that U.S. foreign aid should pay for abortions.

And I thought that was called genocide.

What might baldly be called the Vatican Thought Police are after Theological Studies, the 71-year-old journal for professional theologians that has 2,848 subscribers in 90 countries. They’ve made noises about some of the journal’s essays, apparently forcing it to print a rebuttal to one of them.

There is a cold wind blowing out of Rome. Has anyone noticed that Catholic theologians are running for the secular hills?