Wisdom Wednesday | August 31st

Welcome to Wisdom Wednesday, congratulating San Diego Bishop Robert McElroy, now Cardinal McElroy. Adding to what you know, we offer some cardinal context and consistory consequences, and a commentary concluding that the vision of Pope Francis is taking root – drawn from America Magazine, National Catholic Reporter and Religion News Service. (Don’t forget, Cardinal McElroy will welcome the AUSCP Assembly to the University of San Diego, June 12-15, 2023.)

The moral life

How could public torture of criminals, slavery and subjugation of women ever be morally acceptable? Ever wonder what future generations will think of today’s values? Here is a secular view of how to approach this moral uncertainty from John Danaher in WIRED Magazine.

Death and life

Society and religion generally agree that brain death marks the end of life. National Public Reporter says there is far less agreement about when life begins.

Climate Action

The National Association of Evangelicals unveiled a sweeping report Monday (Aug. 29) on global climate change, laying out what its authors call the “biblical basis” for environmental activism to help spur fellow evangelicals to address the planetary environmental crisis.

Human conflict

• If you have ever wondered why the geographical line drawn by the United Nations between the Israelis and the Palestinians is ignored, the answer is complicated. From a small, idealistic band of religious farmer-soldiers, settlers now number nearly a half-million living in more than 130 cities and towns. Daniel Kane’s essay in Mosaic identifies the ideology of the movement’s founders who have been joined by a large and growing population of secular nationalists, ultra-Orthodox Ḥaredim, and other, non-ideologically aligned groups.
• “Hinduphobia” seems to be growing in the United States. Meanwhile some Hindu pop stars are using music to target Muslims in India. Religion News Service has two reports.
• Robert Mickens, at La Croix International, looks with sadness at a world where people in conflict and even war who, on each side, profess to be Christians.
• Synodality tension. A La Croix commentary on synodality offers the view of a Catholic scholar who says Catholics demand a reform of the clericalist priesthood. She writes openly and honestly about the tensions between clergy and the laity.
• Anglicans in conflict at Lambeth abandon vote on same-sex marriage.

The issue of gay people and their rights is equivalent a struggle in our time to the one over race,” said Michael Curry, presiding bishop of the Episcopal Church.

• A pop star’s joke about perversion lands her in a Turkish jail. This is just one of the RNS stories available this week. Check the right sidebar to see other items such as the pope’s call for the world to accept immigrants and refugees and a Russian Orthodox effort to expand into Africa.

The second most-loved church in Mexico

Restoration work has recently begun after a long pause at quake-damaged Our Lady of the Angels Church in Mexico. The Associated Press provides the text and the photos.

Of moon shots and sacred caves

Unlike last year’s climate change film, “Don’t Look Up,” the message of “Thirteen Lives” is that we need to look down, into the darkest fissures of the earth, the caves and sinkholes, the submerged rice paddies and gushing tributaries.

‘Padre Pio” movie – Not a biopic

Director Abel Ferrara’s treatment frankly ignores some of the juiciest bits of the Padre Pio saga, which involved a dozen Vatican investigations into purported dalliances with women, alleged financial improprieties and doubts about the stigmatas. In their place, Ferrara weaves a parallel tale about the beginnings of fascism in Italy that is, unexpectedly, utterly relevant today.

Labor Day 2022

A page at the U.S. bishops’ website affirms Catholic teaching that work is more than a way to make a living; it is a form of continuing participation in God’s creation. If the dignity of work is to be protected, then the basic rights of workers must be respected — the right to productive work, to decent and fair wages, to the organization and joining of unions, to private property, and to economic initiative. A page at the U.S. bishops’ website offers thoughts from Scripture and Tradition.

Want to brush up on your history? Take our Labor Day Pop Quiz!