From Fintan O'Toole in The Guardian, 23 August 2018: When Jorge Mario Bergoglio chose the name Francis for his papacy, he was asking Catholics to make a connection to the medieval religious revolutionary Francis of Assisi. Early in his spiritual pilgrimage, the original Francis heard the icon of the crucified Christ in the Italian church of San Damiano…
Author: Fr. Michael Campion
Homily, 20th Sunday of the Year (B)
Over 50 years ago, in 1967, the Oxford University Students Union held its first debate to be nationally televised on BBC. It caused quite a stir at the time and upset many Catholics. The motion was “The Roman Catholic Church has no place in the Twentieth Century”. The Reverend Ian Paisley, then a young firebrand…
Father’s lesson in forgiveness
By Mark Stibbe in THE TIMES, 18 August 18 2018 It was my father, Philip Stibbe, who taught me about forgiveness. Dad had been a prisoner-of-war at the hands of the Japanese. For three years he suffered terrible beatings and all manner of tortures. He never spoke about these things, but he did write about…
Homily 19th Sunday (B) of the Year
Today’s is the third of four Gospel readings we are having for as many weeks from Chapter 6 of the Gospel according to St John. Today’s text is part of a dialogue Jesus had with fellow Jews about his identity and his claim to have a unique relationship with God, greater than any other person’s…
A gross betrayal of trust: the Benedictine schools scandal
15 August 2018 | by Catherine Pepinster in THE TABLET In October 1975 a small item entitled “Bishops’ Move” appeared in the Britain section of The Economist magazine, tipping off readers that the relatively unknown Basil Hume, Abbot of Ampleforth, could well be the next Archbishop of Westminster. The magazine had an inside track: its…
Pennsylvania report: Vatican expresses ‘shame and sorrow’
17 August 2018 | by Catholic News Service Greg Burke, Vatican spokesman, is seen with Pope Francis aboard the flight from Dhaka, Bangladesh, to Rome Dec. 2, 2017 CNS photo/Paul Haring The church must learn hard lessons from its past, and there should be accountability for both abusers and those who permitted abuse to occur'…
Homily, 17th Sunday (B) 2018
(For the first time in nearly seven months, I celebrated the Sunday Masses at Holy Name on 29 July. As my health improves, I hope to resume doing so by the end of August. ~ MJC) I don’t know whether it is true or not but the story is told that when Peter, now Lord,…
Patients can be starved to death in their ‘best interests’
from Rose Gamble in THE TABLET, 31 July 2018: A Supreme Court ruling this week that legal permission will no longer be needed to withdraw treatment from patients in a permanent vegetative state (PVS) will increase the likelihood that patients in this condition will be starved or dehydrated to death in their supposed “best interests”,…
Losing religion can be seriously good for your wealth
From THE TIMES, 19 July 2018: It is a debate that has raged between scholars for more than a century: does a country become less religious after it grows richer or does secularism help capitalism to flourish? Now a study has provided an answer: rejecting God can significantly boost a nation’s wealth. Academics at the…
A Catholic trifecta of disgrace: Next step in abuse saga is due
By Mary E Hunt in The National Catholic Reporter (USA), 20 July 2018: The Academy Award-winning movie "Spotlight" offered a summary of the first part of what I predict will be a Catholic trifecta of disgrace. "Spotlight" showed priests abusing minors and clerical higher-ups covering for them, making for a grim, ongoing tale of betrayal…
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