NCR Today is the group blog of NCR. Each member of our diverse team of bloggers writes on different topics, including the politics of the church and secular society (and the interaction between the two), culture, management of the church and more.
I hope some readers got to watch the video of the installation Mass for Archbishop George Lucas as the new archbishop of Omaha. (So far, I have not found it on-demand.) The ceremony was lovely but St. Cecilia’s Cathedral is spectacular. There, smack-dab in the very middle of Middle America is a structure of Spanish colonial revival architecture that took my breath away.
Stephen Colbert did a whole segment last night on the pope's wrist injury. Fans of the show may remember that after he broke his own wrist in 2007, Colbert launched his WristStrong program in which he tries to get celebrities to wear red silicone bracelets. Now he wants to get one on the broken wrist of Pope Benedict XVI--by having Colbert viewers pass one along to someone "holier than thou" until it reaches the pontiff.
Vietnam police detain 18 Catholics after clashes
Omaha Catholic archdiocese installs new prelate
Associate Press picks up VOTF fundraising effort success
Illinois: $3.9 Million Church Settlement
Suspended Catholic priest announces run for Philippines presidency
It has become cliche to say that the greatest kept secret in the church is its social justice tradition. I think it is getting fair airing today having become a topic of political chatter at the highest level and having received a boost with the last papal encyclical.
So I’ll venture to suggest that there’s an even deeper secret that cuts across denominational lines: the themes of Gospel nonviolence and love of enemies.
We blogged about this yesterday, Voice of the Faithful lives to pray another day. Here's the media statement Voice of the Faithful released:
The Organization Is Working Toward a More Secure Financial Base
Topping my summer reading list is A Pilgrim in a Pilgrim Church, Archbishop Rembert Weakland's memoir that includes his response to the scandal that precipitated his resignation, along with a frank discussion of his own homosexuality. I'm only on page 85 of the 284-page tome, but have already covered his childhood in Patton, Pa., the novitiate at St. Vincent's Archabbey in Latrobe, his theological studies in Rome and now his musical studies at Julliard and Columbia in New York.
This morning, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee held its confirmation hearing for Miguel Diaz, nominated by President Barack Obama to be the U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. The hearing was chaired by Sen. Robert Casey, D-Pa. The only other members of the committee present for the hearing were Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., and Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho.
The hearing was thoroughly amicable.
Here's an update on one of many disputes about dioceses closing parishes.
Parishioners of Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church in Port Bolivar, Texas, have sued to keep the Galveston-Houston archdiocese from closing their parish, the last remaining Catholic church building standing on the Bolivar Peninsula after Hurricane Ike.
Last month, the archdiocese tried to move the case to federal court, saying the suit was interfering with church doctrine in violation of the constitutional separation of church and state.
But Monday, July 20, U.S. District Judge Melinda Harmon ruled that the case concerned property rights and not a constitutional question, so it will stay in state court.
I don’t know whether the bishops assigned to investigate the Legionaries of Christ plan to interview Jason Berry, one of the writers who originally broke the story about the secretive order and its founder, Fr. Marcial Maciel Degollado, but he ought to be on their “must see” list.
Today is the feast of St. Mary Magdalene (or St. Mary of Magdala). My colleague and NCR house theologian, Pat Marrin, offers a reflection on this feast, Apostle to the Apostles. You can listen or read more about St. Mary Magdalene at the Web site for St. Anthony Messenger, Saint of the Day podcast. This speaker says Mary might be consider the patron saint of the slandered, because of the persistent legend that she is the unnamed sinful woman who anointed the feet of Jesus in Luke 7:36-50.
Scholars today point out that there is no scriptural basis for confusing the two women.
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