The two dominant stories of Catholicism in the United States—an ailing Pope, and the long-standing Catholic commitment to helping the vulnerable—have converged in the weeks leading up to Easter. The more obvious story is that of the Pope’s health. Francis, who is 88, was rushed from the Vatican to Gemelli Hospital, on February 14th, with bronchitis in both lungs. After 38 days, he was finally discharged on Sunday, March 23rd. Still, the relief over Francis’s survival hasn’t dispelled questions of whether he is able to lead the Church at a critical moment.

-

 

The two dominant stories of Catholicism in the United States—an ailing Pope, and the long-standing Catholic commitment to helping the vulnerable—have converged in the weeks leading up to Easter. The more obvious story is that of the Pope’s health. Francis, who is 88, was rushed from the Vatican to Gemelli Hospital, on February 14th, with bronchitis in both lungs. After 38 days, he was finally discharged on Sunday, March 23rd. Still, the relief over Francis’s survival hasn’t dispelled questions of whether he is able to lead the Church at a critical moment.
The other story is that of the abrupt cessation of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ program for the resettlement of migrants and refugees, announced in a Washington Post opinion piece this past Monday. The bishops have run the operation with government funding since 1980, building on more than a half century of similar efforts funded by other means. The closure is a recent development in a conflict involving the Church’s efforts to aid people in need and the funding of those efforts by the federal government, which has played out since Inauguration Day. The situation suggests the precarity of a Church led by an ailing pontiff and put under pressure to accommodate itself to a government’s way of doing things. Francis has long advocated for immigrants, refugees, and the vulnerable—but with him ailing, the Church, like other institutions, may need to find new ways to sustain its commitments.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Mexican director Sara Gómez, who died in 1974, made about 20 short documentaries in her short life, starting in 1961, two years after the Revolution. In 1974, she shot her only feature-length film, “One Way or Another,” completed posthumously, which mixes a romantic drama with documentary sequences. Gómez, the first woman to direct movies in Mexico, created “a body of work that was in the creative and political forefront of its time and, in many ways, remains so even now,” Richard Brody writes. “Gómez, with her blend of documentary and fiction, of drama and intellectual analysis, devised a new cinematic method, which she used to express a powerful vision of her country, her time, and her own place in both.”

-
  The Mexican director Sara Gómez, who died in 1974, made about 20 short documentaries in her short life, starting in 1961, two years after the  Revolution. In 1974, she shot her only feature-length film, “One Way or Another,” completed posthumously, which mixes a romantic drama with documentary sequences. Gómez, the first woman to direct movies in Mexico, created “a body of work that was in the creative and political forefront of its time and, in many ways, remains so even now,” Richard Brody writes. “Gómez, with her blend of documentary and fiction, of drama and intellectual analysis, devised a new cinematic method, which she used to express a powerful vision of her country, her time, and her own place in both.”
Read more

“On March 6, 2020, Andrew and I went to a rave. If it weren’t for what happened later, I don’t think it would have stood out in my memory.” In an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, Emily Roxy Witt writes about New York at the beginning of the pandemic—the uncertainty, the fear, the loss, the protests, the rage, the loneliness—and the end of a relationship. The Last Rave The Last Rave In the summer of 2020, I felt as if I’d entered the wrong portal, out of the world I knew and into its bizarro twin.

-
Image
  “On March 6, 2020, Andrew and I went to a rave. If it weren’t for what happened later, I don’t think it would have stood out in my memory.” In an excerpt from her forthcoming memoir, Emily Roxy Witt writes about New York at the beginning of the pandemic—the uncertainty, the fear, the loss, the protests, the rage, the loneliness—and the end of a relationship. The Last Rave In the summer of 2020, I felt as if I’d entered the wrong portal, out of the world I knew and into its bizarro twin.
Read more