March 27, 2017, Monday -- A Communist Ecumenist? Zyuganov on the Split between Eastern and Western Christianity I have been trying to drive home one fundamental point for more than 20 years now, both in the pages of Inside the Vatican magazine, and in the work of the Urbi et Orbi Foundation which seeks to "build [...]
March 19, 2017, Sunday -- Meet an Extraordinary Man This Week in Washington D.C. Meet an Extraordinary Archbishop this Week in Washington D.C. "His name is Thaddeus" An extraordinary archbishop got on an airplane today in the the former East bloc to fly to Washington D.C. He will land in D.C. tonight. His name is Thaddeus [...]
February 28, 2017, Tuesday -- "Not flesh and blood" "Francis received in audience this morning... - H. E. Abp. Guido Pozzo, Titular Archbishop of Bagnoregio, Secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei..." —from the official Vatican Press Office Bulletin of February 27, 2017, that is, yesterday (link); Archbishop Guido Pozzo, the head of the Vatican's Ecclesia [...]
February 24, 2017, Tuesday -- Pilgrimage Toward a Hidden God Pilgrimage Toward A Hidden God A powerful contemporary intellectual movement today called “transhumanism” hopes the human race can be developed, improved, “transcended.” Christians share part of this hope, but by means of an entirely different process… By Robert Moynihan Each man desires to know his true [...]
February 7, 2017, Tuesday -- The New York Times and Steve Bannon "Vatican Traditionalists See Hero in Trump Aide." —Headline of a New York Times front-page article today (link) which argues that "Vatican Traditionalists" see US President Donald Trump's top aide and "strategic advisor," the Irish American Catholic and former Breitbart News executive Steve Bannon, as [...]
February 6, 2017, Monday -- Posters against the Pope "Ah, Franky [referring to Pope Francis using a Roman dialect form of Francis which suggests great familiarity], you've put Congregations under supervision, removed priests, decapitated the Order of Malta and the Franciscans of the Immaculate and ignored Cardinals... But where in all this is your compassion?" —Words [...]
January 31, 2017, Tuesday -- "The flower of mankind" "Our forefathers... were able to bequeath to us a Church and a civilization that really is the flower of mankind." — Steve Bannon, top advisor to US President Donal Trump, in 2014, speaking from Los Angeles to a Vatican conference on global poverty and on how best [...]
January 31, 2017, on the Knights of Malta... I left off my last report, on the complicated and tumultuous story of the Knights of Malta (Letter #5 this year) with a "to be continued." I would like to write more, but at this moment there is not much that can be said. We know this: Grand [...]
January 22, 2017, Sunday -- On Trump, Francis Waits On the dangers -- and need for -- populist movements Pope Francis has granted another long interview, this time to two Spanish journalists writing for the daily El Pais of Madrid, Spain. The interview was conducted on Friday, January 20, in the Domus Santa Marta, where the [...]
January 20, 2017, Friday -- Ten Found Safe Some good news from central Italy. Ten survivors have now been dug out of tons of snow and are alive and well after an avalanche buried a mountain hotel at about 5 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon. Rescuers are continuing to look for another 20 people who are thought [...]