1. New York’s Hottest Club Is the Catholic Church, By Julia Yost, The New York Times, August 9, 2022, 5:00 AM, Opinion
As senior churchmen seek to make Catholicism palatable to modernity, members of a small but significant scene are turning to the ancient faith in defiance of liberal pieties. The scene is often associated with “Dimes Square,” a downtown Manhattan neighborhood popular with a pandemic-weary Generation Z — or Zoomer — crowd, but it has spread across a network of podcasts and upstart publications. Its sensibility is more transgressive than progressive. Many of its denizens profess to be apolitical. Others hold outré opinions, whether sincerely or as fashion statements. Reactionary motifs are chic: Trump hats and “tradwife” frocks, monarchist and anti-feminist sentiments. Perhaps the ultimate expression of this contrarian aesthetic is its embrace of Catholicism.
Urban trends can shape a culture, as millennial Brooklyn did in its heyday. The Dimes Square scene is small, but its ascent highlights a culture-wide shift. Progressive morality, formulated in response to the remnants of America’s Christian culture, was once a vanguard. By 2020, the year of lockdowns and Black Lives Matter protests, progressivism had come to feel hegemonic in the social spaces occupied by young urban intellectuals. Traditional morality acquired a transgressive glamour. Disaffection with the progressive moral majority — combined with Catholicism’s historic ability to accommodate cultural subversion — has produced an in-your-face style of traditionalism. This is not your grandmother’s church — and whether the new faithful are performing an act of theater or not, they have the chance to revitalize the church for young, educated Americans.
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What Catholicism requires is adherence to disciplines and dogmas — a test of sincerity that applies in Dimes Square and beyond. In early July, after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, a rosary procession in NoLIta from Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral to the neighborhood Planned Parenthood (until 2020 named for Margaret Sanger) drew large crowds of rowdy counterprotesters. It was a reminder, an easy walk from Dimes Square, that the church runs afoul of the culture in every generation. Real-world events will confront young urban Catholics with the full implications of Catholic doctrine, making it hard to view the rosary as a fashion statement. Over time, these developments will sort the converts from the larpers.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/08/09/opinion/nyc-catholicism-dimes-square-religion.html
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2. Nicaragua bishops rally to support prelate detained by Ortega’s forces, By Inés San Martín, Crux, August 8, 2022
As a Nicaraguan bishop remains under what amounts to house arrest, prevented from leaving his diocesan headquarters by security forces acting on the orders of President Daniel Ortega, other Catholic prelates in the country are voicing support for their colleague.
“The Bishops’ Conference of Nicaragua, in light of the situation that our brother in the episcopate, Monsignor Rolando Jose Alvarez Lagos, is living, want to express our fraternity, friendship and episcopal communion with him, since this situation touches our hearts as bishops and as members of the Nicaraguan church: ‘Because if one member suffers, we all suffer with him’,” said a statement read by all the country’s bishops at Masses in their dioceses on Sunday.
Quoting Pope Benedict XVI, the prelates said that the church of Nicaragua proclaims the Gospel of Peace, “and is open to collaboration with all national and international authorities.” Quoting Pope St. John Paul II, the bishops called for the building of a “civilization of love.”
Pope Francis, so far, has not spoken out on Alvarez’s detention.
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-the-americas/2022/08/nicaragua-bishops-rally-to-support-prelate-detained-by-ortegas-forces
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3. Reacting to pontifical academy, theologian says teaching of Humanae vitae can’t change, By Carl Bunderson, Catholic News Agency, August 8, 2022, 7:01 PM
The teaching of Humanae vitae on contraception is an instance of the ordinary and universal magisterium, and as such is irreformable, a moral theologian has said in response to a statement from the Pontifical Academy for Life.
Father Thomas Petri, O.P., president of the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., noted that even critics of the teaching on contraception have “acknowledged that this was always the Church’s teaching” and that nowhere in the Church’s teaching has there been permissiveness, of any form, of contraception.
“This suggests that this has always been the teaching of the Church, so it’s part of the ordinary, universal magisterium,” Petri said. “So even if it’s the case that any particular encyclical” such as Humanae vitae “is not infallible, the teaching that it presents is in fact irreformable, because it’s part of the ordinary and universal magisterium of the Church.”
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The Pontifical Academy for Life has defended the discussion it hosted of the permissibility of contraception, tweeting Aug. 5 that “History records by Abp. [Ferdindando] Lambruschini confirmed that Paul VI said him directly that HV were not under infallibility.”
Then in an Aug. 8 statement, the academy wrote that “many people on Twitter seem to believe that Humanae Vitae is an infallible and irreformable pronouncement against contraception.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251997/teaching-of-humanae-vitae-is-irreformable
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4. Indiana’s broad abortion ban overshadows another pro-family law passed the same day, By Jonah McKeown, Catholic News Agency, August 8, 2022, 5:04 PM
The same day last week that Indiana adopted an abortion ban with limited exceptions, Gov. Eric Holcomb signed into law another measure the state’s Catholic conference says has the potential to help families.
Known as SB2, the legislation, which received broad bipartisan support, provides for a tax exemption for an adopted child, cuts the state’s tax on children’s diapers, caps the gas tax, and increases the adoption tax credit, the Indy Star reported.
It also creates a $45 million fund for a variety of family-related programs and initiatives, the Criterion, the newspaper of the Indianapolis Archdiocese, reported.
“The Catholic Church has a history of providing aid, comfort, and support for mothers and families,” said Angela Espada, executive director of the Indiana Catholic Conference, the Criterion reported.
“It hopes that the allotted $45 million will improve the lives of Hoosiers by supporting adoption, pregnancy planning, the health of pregnant women, postpartum mothers, and infants, along with supporting the needs of families with children less than 4 years old,” she said. “Additionally, there are funds to address the barriers to long-acting reversible contraception.”
https://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/251995/indiana-abortion-ban-overshadows-another-pro-family-law
__________________________________________________________TCA Media Monitoring provides a snapshot from national newspapers and major Catholic press outlets of coverage regarding significant Catholic Church news and current issues with which the Catholic Church is traditionally or prominently engaged. The opinions and views expressed in the articles do not necessarily reflect the views of The Catholic Association. |
