Dear Reader,
Pope Francis met Holocaust survivors Edith Bruck and Lidia Maksymowicz at an audience in his Vatican residence to mark Holocaust Memorial Day. “This unspeakable cruelty must never be repeated”, he said. Maksymowicz was just three years old when she and her mother, a member of the Belorussian resistance, were taken to Auschwitz-Birkenau. She has written her autobiography which contains a preface by Pope Francis. Carol Glatz, CNS. Addressing Catholic journalists, Pope Francis emphasised the role of journalists in communicating with the disaffected or misinformed. He also warned of the danger of an “infodemic” as well as the danger of “falsified if not invented news”. By Patrick Hudson.
2. The Vatican has admitted making “major mistakes in financial management” in a property deal between 2014 and 2018, when the Holy See’s Secretariat of State purchased a former Harrods showroom in Chelsea, west London. The property has recently been sold at an estimated loss to the Vatican of around £100 million. Christopher Lamb’s article looks into the murky world of Vatican finance: payments to middlemen, corruption charges, and the prosecution of a Cardinal formerly close to the Pope.
3. In Paedophile priests: What Benedict knew… Christa Pongratz-Lippitt writes on the bomb which has gone off in Germany with the publication of a report into child sexual abuse in the German Church. The report accuses Cardinal Ratzinger, pictured, the Pope Emeritus, of misconduct in three cases during his time as Archbishop of Munich from 1977 to 1982. In his View from Rome, Christopher Lamb writes on how the Pope Emeritus’ 82-page written submission to the German law firm’s inquiry has caused alarm in the Vatican. His response was submitted without consulting Pope Francis, and a separate fiefdom appears to have emerged around Benedict. As Christopher concludes, having two Popes in the Vatican was bound to lead to trouble.
4. In Ireland, the Capuchins are closing friaries and withdrawing from their residence in Dublin due to their ageing profile and declining numbers. One of the closures, Rochestown friary in Cork, was founded in the 1870s but has not had a vocation since the 1980s. Ireland is to get an extra Bank Holiday from 1 February next year for St Brigid’s day. Sarah Mac Donald has both stories.
5. Cardinal Vincent Nichols has visited Wormwood Scrubs prison in what he describes as an extension of the synodal process. His visit was organised by PACT, the Prison Advice and Care Trust, and he was welcomed by the Catholic Chaplain to the prison, Fr Chima Ibekwe Madoc Cairns reports. Theresa Alessandro, Catholic community engagement officer with PACT, has written a post about the visit. With a focus on listening and encounter, the men spoke about suicide, depression, the deaths of friends. They worried about maintaining bonds with their children, and whether they would be welcomed into a parish community on their release. Something for us all to think hard about.
6. The Bishops of England and Wales have issued new Covid guidance, allowing an almost total return to pre-pandemic practice. Holy water stoups [and baptismal fonts, see picture] may be refilled, the sign of peace may be given, there is no longer need for social distancing but Mass-goers should be sensitive to the needs of others. Cardinal Vincent Nichols has cancelled the annual Old Rite confirmations which have taken place for nearly 20 years at St James’ Church, Spanish Place in London.
7. Digital theatre continues as a distinct art form after Covid made it an emergency measure. Audiences who would not normally visit a theatre have become a new income stream for venues. Mark Lawson reviews Into the Night: The Story of the Penlee Lifeboat, streaming online until 20 February. Isabelle Grey reviews a new film, Mass. Six years after a mass school shooting two sets of parents – one pair bereaved, the other the parents of the shooter who also killed himself – sit in a room and talk. Peter Taylor was a young journalist at the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland in 1972 and he has chronicled the events ever since. BBC Radio 4’s Bloody Sunday: Fifty Years On is reviewed by D.J. Taylor.
8. In his latest blog, Clifford Longley asks whether Boris Johnson can and should be tried for misconduct in public office. If so, it would be the constitutional crisis of the century. Read it alongside Julia Langdon’s piece for the magazine on Boris’s loss of public trust: it will “devour his career,” she thinks.
9. The Canadian singer-songwriters Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have removed their music from the streaming platform Spotify in protest against its anti-vax podcasts. Both artists appear in The Tablet’s online archive, which is free to digital subscribers. Vatican Astronomer and Jesuit Guy Consolmagno writes on the anti-vaxxers in this week’s magazine: without being foolhardy about the limitations of human knowledge, he says, we still have to trust the science.
10. Alban McCoy’s sermon for the Fourth Sunday of the Year grapples with two words: God and love. How do we speak about love? Is love a single reality or does it have different realities? There is love which is not planned (eros) and love which seeks the good of other (agape). St Paul’s advice about the practical reality of loving comes to our aid. Only the light of love can give us the courage to keep living and working. I hope you live and love well this week.
(This newsletter was compiled with the help of Stephanie Bennett, editorial administrator of The Pastoral Review, and Madoc Cairns.)
Ruth Gledhill
