Why feminists are friars’ new friends
A small act of mercy brought female protesters and Dominicans together during the Women’s March in Washington.
In a blog for Aleteia.org, Brother Martin Davis OP described how, once a few Dominican friars allowed a handful of protesters to use the friary bathrooms, a long queue with hundreds of people began to form. Brother Martin grew anxious as he noticed some of the protesters had pornographic and pro-abortion logos.
“Nevertheless,” he wrote, “those carrying or wearing these things had the courtesy to cover them up. The fervour that may have animated the large crowd did not go so deep as to make people oblivious or rude to flesh-and-blood humans.”
Brother Davis also found common ground with some of the protesters and was “able to engage in discussions about the Church’s teachings on the dignity of women, labourers and the poor”. In the end “a few marchers spontaneously started collecting money for the Church. It started with their passing around a hat. (I was told not to look at the text on the front, and I didn’t.) Over two hours, hundreds of dollars were donated to the Church without any prompting by the friars.”
Spoof L’Osservatore issue is a ray of hope
A spoof version of the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano circulated in Rome last week. It reported that Francis had at last answered the dubia put to him by four cardinals. For Crux’s John Allen, the mischief offered a “ray of hope”. “It shows that, however polarised opinion in some sectors of the Church may have become, at least people haven’t completely lost their sense of humour.”
That, he said, was the difference between the fake L’Osservatore and the “snarly and mean” anti-Francis posters the previous week. Allen cited the spoof paper’s fictional quote from the unreliable papal interviewer and atheist Antonio Scalfari: “Some things you’ve said, I won’t report. Some things you’d have me report you didn’t actually say, but I’ll put them in so the reader understands who you are.” Allen added: “Anybody who’s spent time trying to parse the texts of the Scalfari dialogues had to get a laugh out of that.”
Why feminists are friars’ new friends
Joseph Pearce has advice for aspiring writers. In an interview with catholicworldreport.com, the convert author said: “One of the main pieces of advice I give … is that one only writes as well as one reads. One can only express oneself in a manner which is informed by the literature that one reads. If we read junk, we’ll write junk … Read Homer, Dante, Shakespeare, Jane Austen, Dickens, Dostoyevsky, Chesterton, Tolkien, Lewis and Waugh.”
Pearce said he was a morning person and sometimes wrote in the middle of the night. “Last week, for instance, I wrote two articles before breakfast.”
✣Meanwhile…
✣ The chief executive of Ryanair has written to Pope Francis inviting him to fly on his no-frills airline for his papal trip to Ireland next year. Michael O’Leary said at a press conference: “He is a Jesuit and he is very clever when it comes to PR so we look forward to flying the Holy Father in 2018.”
But, despite his commitment to frugality, it is unlikely that the Pope will accept the offer. Vatican spokesman Greg Burke has responded to the news saying that the Italian airline Alitalia was an “essential part” of papal trips.
It is not the first time O’Leary has used the papal office for publicity. In 2013 adverts for Ryanair’s cheap flights for Rome showed a picture of O’Leary as “Pontiff Mick” with the tagline: “O’Leary leaves Ryanair for new job.”
✣ Former Hollyoaks actress Emma Rigby has become a celebrity ambassador for Cafod. The Catholic actress, who appears in the new film American Violence, recently released in the US, said: “I am delighted to become an ambassador for Cafod. My Catholic faith is a huge, important part of my life, so it is brilliant to be able to collaborate with a charity that has the same values.“I find this incredibly inspiring and can’t wait to work to put my faith into action and give something back.”
✣The week in quotations
One who insults his brother, kills his brother in his heart Pope Francis Angelus address
[Benedict] is in perfect mental and spiritual health Fr Federico Lombardi Vatican Radio
Council of Priests: whom do we obey, the bishop or the Pope? I’d say both! Bishop Philip Egan Twitter
A state visit is not a question of popular opinion Cardinal Nichols on Trump’s invitation The Irish Catholic
✣Statistic of the week
1,096 The number of seminaries in India. No other country has more Source: CARA
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