NCR Today

Today is the feast of St. Miguel Febres Cordero, FSC.

Francisco Febres Cordero Muñoz was born at Cuenca, Ecuador, on Nov. 7, 1854. He died at Premià de Mar, Spain, one hundred years ago today.

In 1868 he entered The Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, the first Ecuadorian to do so. He became Brother Miguel.

One of the few nice things about losing power around noon on Saturday during the blizzard, and not getting it back until 1 a.m. the next morning, was that I did not have to decide whether or not to watch the Tea Party Convention on C-Span. I was especially torn about watching Sarah Palin’s address to the assembled Tea Partiers. The reason for this ambivalence is essentially hereditary: My father is a bit of an ambulance chaser. He likes to see what is going on and can’t seem to tear his eyes away from a car wreck. If you are stuck in traffic because of rubber-necking as people watch the remains of an accident on the other side of the road, one of those rubber-neckers is my dad. Watching Palin address the Tea Party crowd promised to have all the high drama and the bloody mess of a car crash.

Allegations of Clergy Abuse Revealed in Germany

Vermont Diocese to Sell Chancery to Pay Abuse Claims

Pope Defends Catholic Schools

Students Protest at Carroll University

Churches Fight Landmark Status

[updated]

Despite a recent boomlet of conjecture about a consistory in late February or early March, the consensus in Rome these days seems to be that Pope Benedict XVI isn’t likely to create new cardinals until sometime later in 2010, perhaps as late as November. Between now and then, several other major events loom on the pope’s calendar: Trips to Malta in April, Portugal (Fatima) in May, Cyprus in June and the United Kingdom in September, as well as a Synod of Bishops for the Middle East in October.

As of today, there are a total of 182 cardinals, of whom 111 are under the age of 80 and hence eligible to vote for the next pope. In March, three more cardinals will turn 80, followed by one each in July and August, three more in September, and one each in October and November. Hence if Benedict XVI waits until November, there would be at least 19 slots for new voting cardinals – presuming, as most do, that Benedict intends to honor the limit of 120 set by Pope Paul VI.

Two of the ten cardinals who will “age out” in coming months, by the way, are Americans: Theodore McCarrick of Washington and Adam Maida of Detroit, both now retired.

Rome, like other company towns, is an incubator for gossip. In Los Angeles, the talk is usually about who’s taking over what studio; in Washington, it’s who’s in line for what cabinet job; and in the Eternal City, it’s who’s up and down for senior positions in the Roman Curia.

This is an especially fertile period for such rumors, because sometime in 2010 several important nominations in the Vatican will likely come down the pike. At the moment, the list of heads of offices past 75 and awaiting successors includes: Cardinals Giovanni Battista Re, Congregation for Bishops; Franc Rodé, Congregation for Religious; Claudio Hummes, Congregation for Clergy; Walter Kasper, Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity; and Paul Cordes, Cor Unum. The pope’s right-hand man, Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is also past 75, though many insiders expect Bertone to stick around.

In a Nov. 16, 2009 letter to Cardinal Franc Rode, who is leading a three-year investigation of U.S. women religious congregations, Xaverian Brother Peter Fitzpatrick describes himself as "an elderly retired religious teaching brother, quite elderly in fact (82 in a month’s time), and not so sharp or quick as I used to be."

He is so much more.

Vic Hummert is a long time friend and thoughtful supporter of our life-giving planet Earth. He sent me this reflection and I thought some of you would enjoy reading it:

Teilhard de Chardin (1888-1950) and Thomas Berry (1914-2009) have turned on many intellectual lights for millions in recent years.

Thomas Berry has been a personal friend since I asked to meet him in 1989. On numerous occasions I have heard him state, “We cannot have a healthy economy in a sick world.”

2008 was an economic roller coaster ride for the global economy. If Thomas Berry were present at Federal Reserve meetings or international symposia to figure out how we could get out of the quagmire without doubt he would remind the PhD’s in economics that the “Earth debt” exceeds the trillions of US dollars or Euros that are mere pieces of paper.

If we are running out of everything essential for survival –pure air, potable water, decent, nourishing food, sources of energy – then we as “Earthlings” are in tight straits.

Amid the hype and hard-sell of Super Bowl Sunday this weekend, there's another bit of TV sports viewing that stands out as an island of serious reflection: it called "Faith Bowl III."

The half-hour program is produced for the third year in a row by the Hollywood-based Catholic production company Family Theater -- it's a thought-provoking roundtable discussion by three prominent Catholic athletes, discussing the challenges of living as a Catholic and raising a family in the high pressure world of professional sports.

Though the Vatican has had a Pontifical Council for Health Care Workers for twenty-five years now, and while Christian literature is rich with meditations on the spirituality of suffering, one could nevertheless make the argument that the most powerful recent statement Catholicism has made about the dignity of the ill person was the way John Paul II allowed his own twilight to play out in full public view.

Throughout the latter years of his papacy, John Paul was aware of the voices making the rounds that it was undignified for the pope to continue to travel and appear in public in such a weakened state, badly hobbled by age and by Parkinson's disease. To be fair, that reaction was partly rooted in natural pity for an elderly man struggling just to stay on his feet, or to utter a few slurred words. But John Paul took the opposite view, seeing his determination to keep going as an important counter-witness in a society that often worships youth and physical beauty.