Wisdom Wednesday | April 5th

April 5AUSCP NewsRoundup

Welcome to Wednesday of Holy Week, with Passover starting tonight and Ramadan continuing this month. The pope plans a full week through Easter Sunday’s noon time Urbi et Orbi Blessing.

The display of a forbidden religious images leads to the resignation of a university president, even though students could opt out of seeing it.

Some dioceses in the UK give up supporting fossil fuels, not just for Lent but forever.

EWTN won’t be playing in San Diego, says Cardinal McElroy.

And what is proper protocol: Should you wish a Jewish friend a Happy Passover?

Holy Week

Pope Francis, rebounding after brief hospitalization, began Holy Week calling on Christians to embrace “people written off as problems.” The pope plans a full week, and Vatican News offers video links to all the ceremonies.

Some Christians in the United Kingdom have prayed during Lent that their dioceses give up forever their financial holdings in fossil fuels. It looks like some of their prayer have been answered.

Georgia Senator Raphael Warnock looks ahead to Easter Sunday, reflecting on his life as a pastor-politician. He said,

My life is a sermon, that I get to preach on Sunday and embody and make come alive in my work in the Senate.”

Palm Sunday in Nashville: Christ Presbyterian Church hosted funerals for three of the victims of a mass shooting. “If a week like this teaches me anything, it’s that today is the day to believe,” senior pastor Scott Sauls told his congregation.

Passover

USA Today offers an easy-to-read article on the meaning of Passover, and also answers any question you may have about “Should I wish a Jewish friend a ‘Happy Passover?’”

Religion News Service offers an opinion column: “Passover reminds us why a nation needs to remember its ‘bad old times.’” The holiday is about recalling uncomfortable truths, an exercise every American can benefit from.

The Associated Press finds that at many Passover Seders, Israel’s unrest will be on the table, after tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposed judicial overhaul.

Ramadan

NBC reports that UConn Players inspired the Muslim community by observing Ramadan at the Final Four – despite the disrupted dietary routine.

Orthodox leader under house arrest

Ukraine’s top security agency said Metropolitan Pavel, the abbot of a famed Orthodox monastery, was suspected of justifying Russian aggression, a criminal offense.

Retiring/resigning

Hamline University’s president will retire following an Islamic art controversy.

The president was widely criticized for her response to a professor who showed a painting of the Prophet Muhammad.

Joe Rigney, Bethlehem Seminary’s president, has resigned due to his support of Christian nationalism and infant baptism.

Sexual abuse

The former principal of a Jewish girls school in Australia was found guilty Monday of sexually abusing two students, ending a nine-year legal battle that strained relations between the Australian and Israeli governments while antagonizing Australia’s Jewish community.

Pope Francis made the ‘Vos Estis’ clergy abuse law permanent. For the first time in the church’s history, the law mandated that all priests and members of religious orders worldwide are obligated to report any suspicions of abuse or its cover-up.

Bulls pulled

The Vatican on Thursday (March 30) responded to Indigenous demands and formally repudiated the “Doctrine of Discovery,” the theories backed by 15th-century “papal bulls” that legitimized the colonial-era seizure of Native lands and form the basis of some property laws today.

Surveys

A stable share of Americans have been participating in some way – either virtually or in person – during the pandemic, but in-person attendance is slightly lower than it was before COVID-19

Despite political criticism of “the government,” Americans feel favorable about many federal agencies, especially the Park Service, Postal Service and NASA.

Advocacy

19 people were charged with trespassing while protesting an anti-trans bill at Kentucky’s Capitol

A former mayoral candidate in Florida wants the Allendale United Methodist Church’s tax exemption investigated.

A Georgetown panel recently explored labor, Catholic social teaching and young people, according to NCR.

Webinar tomorrow from FutureChurch

Register for Women Remembered: Jesus’ Female Disciples, April 6th at 12:00pm EST.

Cardinal McElroy criticizes EWTN

He says San Diego Diocese won’t publish EWTN content.

EWTN worries me because it represents a giant of economic and cultural power connected to a religious viewpoint that is fundamentally critical of the pope.”

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