U.S.

Catholics leaders react after shooting at former president Donald Trump rally in Pennsylvania

(Shannon Mullen. Catholic World Reporter).

Catholic ecclesial and political leaders across the United States offered their prayers for Donald Trump after an attempted assassination of the former president Saturday evening at a campaign event in Pennsylvania. Among them was Bishop David Zubik of the Diocese of Pittsburgh, where the shooting took place. “We are deeply shocked by news reports of the shooting at a political rally for former President Trump right across the street from one of our churches in Butler County,” Zubik said in a statement. “We are grateful for the swift actions of the Secret Service and our local first responders,” he added. “Let us join together in prayer for the health and safety of all, for healing and peace, and for an end to this climate of violence in our world. May God guide and protect us all.”

Two recent, notable pieces of Vatican news not to be overlooked

(Christopher R. Altieri. Catholic Word Report).

New Vatican directives about the conduct and attire of employees and yesterday’s collection for Peter’s pence should both be considered in light of the growing outrage over the handling of the Rupnik affair.

In all the rightly indignant ferment over appalling developments in the Rupnik Affair and the soap opera stramash over Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s richly deserved comeuppance, two news items worth everyone’s attention skated under the radar.

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Rupture by stealth?

(George Weigel. CATHOLIC WORLD REPORT).

According to a source well-positioned to know, one of the behind-the-scenes dramas of the present pontificate involved Pope Francis’s determination to amend the Catechism of the Catholic Church and declare capital punishment an intrinsically evil act: something that can never be countenanced. After a lengthy and bruising argument over whether that was doctrinally possible, a compromise was reached and CCC 2267 now declares the death penalty “inadmissible” – a strong term, but one with no technical theological or doctrinal meaning.

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Ruffini’s disastrous Friday points to wider, deeper problems in the Vatican

(Christopher R. Altieri. Catholic World Report).

Friday was a very bad day for Dr. Paolo Ruffini, Prefect of the Dicastery for Communication, but Ruffini ought not to be the sole or even the primary focus of attention.

The Vatican communications chief, Dr. Paolo Ruffini, faces mounting criticism from voices across the spectrum of opinion in the Church after he defended—on Friday, at the premier Catholic media event of the year in the United States—the use of digital and other reproductions of artwork by the accused serial rapist, Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik.

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Catholic doctors, ethicists criticize Pontifical Academy for Life

(AC Wimmer. CNA).

Representatives of the Australian Catholic Medical Association, with the support of several Catholic moral theologians and bioethicists, have criticized a book published by the Pontifical Academy for Life for its lack of understanding of “current science” and specific areas of medicine.

The experts argue that the book spreads “misleading and confusing” theological and medical information that contradicts established Church teachings on contraception and assisted reproductive technologies.

The book in question, “Etica Teologica Della Vita” (ETV), covers “Theological Ethics of Life: Scripture, Tradition, and Practical Challenges.” The 528-page Italian publication is a synthesis of a seminar sponsored by the academy in 2021.

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Catholic Relief Services unable to provide aid to southern Gaza amid ongoing war

(Kate Quiñones. Catholic World Report).

A Catholic Relief Services (CRS) official told CNA this week that the organization has been unable to get humanitarian supplies through the southern Gaza Strip since early May and that it no longer has supplies in the warehouses in the area.

“Most of the aid crosses through Rafah, and the Rafah crossing has been closed since early May because of the military operations there,” spokeswoman Megan Gilbert told CNA in an email.

“Some aid gets through the Kerem Shalom crossing, but it’s very limited,” she said.

CRS has served more than 750,000 people in the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023, according to an April press release from the organization.

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Catholic Relief Services unable to provide aid to southern Gaza amid ongoing war

(The Catholic World Report. Kate Quiñones).

A Catholic Relief Services (CRS) official told CNA this week that the organization has been unable to get humanitarian supplies through the southern Gaza Strip since early May and that it no longer has supplies in the warehouses in the area. “Most of the aid crosses through Rafah, and the Rafah crossing has been closed since early May because of the military operations there,” spokeswoman Megan Gilbert told CNA in an email. “Some aid gets through the Kerem Shalom crossing, but it’s very limited,” she said. CRS has served more than 750,000 people in the region since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war on Oct. 7, 2023, according to an April press release from the organization.

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On Faggioli’s feverish “Trump-Strickland-Barron” fantasy

(CatholicWorld Report. Larry Chapp).

Massimo Faggioli’s recent Commonweal essay is heavy on bombastic rhetoric and very light on data, arguments, and substance.

My friend, the journalist Christopher Altieri, says his least favorite form of writing is what he calls “ink on ink”. That is, a form of writing where one publication comments critically on something in a rival publication. I think Altieri’s instincts are sound but I am going to make an exception. Because every once in a while you read an opinion piece from a well-known public intellectual in a major publication that is so reckless you have to pause for a moment and ask yourself if what you are reading is satire.

Such was the case when I read a recent essay by Massimo Faggioli, professor of theology and religious studies at Villanova University, in Commonweal entitled “Will Trumpism Spare Catholicism?” Normally, I would not comment on such a poorly written essay, but this is in Commonweal, one of the oldest and most influential Catholic journals of opinion out there (and one I generally like). And the author has become one of the leading media voices in the American Church these days. There are also, as we shall see, issues at play that transcend the particular problems with this piece, which is why it is important to dissect its faults.

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Defending Rupnik’s art is possible, but also scandalous and insulting

(Carl E. Olson. Catholic World Report).

A week ago, the editors of the National Catholic Register published an editorial titled “It’s Time to Remove Father Rupnik’s Art”. Their strong stance, they said, was “not an expedient surrender to iconoclasm or ‘cancel culture,’ even though the court of public opinion already has judged him guilty of sexually, spiritually and psychologically manipulating and abusing multiple religious sisters under his authority.”

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