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On August 5th, we celebrate the dedication of the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore, the highest church in the hierarchy of churches dedicated to Our Lady in all of Christendom. The glorious edifice sits atop the Esquiline Hill, beside the palace of Victor Emmanuel II, just outside the Vatican City State – set up on[…]
The post Our Lady of the Snows: Santa Maria Maggiore appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MoreToday, August 5th, we celebrate the dedication of the highest church in the hierarchy of churches dedicated to Our Lady, the basilica of Saint Mary Major – Santa Maria Maggiore. Not that there is any Santa Maria Minore, the lesser – for Our Lady is always great, but that this is the greatest church in[…]
The post Our Lady of the Snows: Santa Maria Maggiore appeared first on Catholic Insight.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | China, Featured, News, Politics, Uighurs, Weekly Headlines, Xi Jinping |
China’s record on human rights protections has long been appalling. But, in the past few weeks, a series of interviews with Uighur Muslims who have escaped from China revealed a whole new level of gut-wrenching details about the Communist regime’s oppression. These interviews expose the existence of a long-suspected archipelago of concentration camps (called “reeducation […]
Posted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | Cancel culture, News |
In the ethnic tradition of Anglo-Saxons, the “patter songs” of Gilbert and Sullivan have been the equivalent of contemporary rap music. Learning the repertoire was part of the expected rites of passage and, in the 1960s, I did my duty, even attaining to the heights of playing Sir Ruthven Murgatroyd, a baronet disguised as young […]
Denver Newsroom, Aug 5, 2020 / 02:55 am (CNA).- After controversy surrounding the removal of American Catholic author Flannery O’Connor’s name from a residence hall, Loyola University Maryland has not said whether it will reconsider its decision.
A petition asking the university to reverse the decision came in the form of a letter, written by Angela Alaimo O’Donnell, a former Loyola professor and a Flannery O’Connor scholar who is the associate director of the Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at Fordham University.
Signed by O’Donnell, as well as more than 80 other authors, scholars and leaders, the letter defended O’Connor’s work and asked the university to reconsider its decision. Among the signatories are Alice Walker, a Black author who grew up down the road from the O’Connor farm, and Bishop Robert Barron.
The letter was presented to Fr. Brian Linnane, S.J., president of Loyola University Maryland, on July 31.
“O’Connor believes in the Imago Dei, the fact that every human being is beloved of God and made in God’s image. Her stories champion the despised, the outcast, and the other, demonstrating their humanity, and call to account people who try to deny their God-given sacred nature,” the letter states. “Among the despised in her stories are African Americans, and the primary objects of her satire are most often racist whites.”
“It is no small thing to remove Flannery O’Connor from the pantheon of Catholic writers and intellectuals honored on your campus. We urge you to reconsider this decision,” the letter states.
According to Baltimore’s archdiocesan newspaper the Catholic Review, Loyola “is undergoing a larger review of all the names of its buildings and a university committee advised [Linnane] on the renaming proposal” that called for the removal of O’Connor’s name.
When asked, a Loyola University Maryland spokesperson did not say whether the petition was being considered, or whether a different building on campus would be named for O’Connor in the future.
“Our president has received the petition. The residence hall has already been renamed for Sister Thea Bowman. I do not know what work will come out of the presidential renaming committee,” Rita Buettner, director of university communications for Loyola University Maryland, told CNA Aug. 4.
Attention was drawn to apparent racism in O’Connor’s personal writings by “How Racist Was Flannery O’Connor?”, a piece that appeared in the New Yorker in June. There, Paul Elie wrote that “letters and postcards she sent home from the North in 1943 were made available to scholars only in 2014, and they show O’Connor as a bigoted young woman.”
O’Connor was a short story writer, novelist, and essayist, as well as a devout Catholic who attended daily Mass. She died of lupus in 1964, at the age of 39.
The residence hall that had borne the name of Flannery O’Connor for more than 10 years was renamed Thea Bowman Hall, after Sr. Thea Bowman, an African-American religious sister and civil rights activist whose cause for canonization is being considered.
Linnane told the Catholic Review that the decision was made in light of student concerns over some of racist comments written by O’Connor in her personal correspondence.
“A residence hall is supposed to be the students’ home,” Linnane said. “If some of the students who live in that building find it to be unwelcoming and unsettling, that has to be taken seriously.”
Linnane added that this did not mean that the school had banned the study of O’Connor’s work, and that the study of her works would still be assigned by professors if they so choose.
Posted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | News, World News |
A Catholic bishop in China has denied that the government plans to tear down his cathedral, after local Catholics expressed concern at Communist authorities taking over land belonging to the diocese
The post Chinese bishop denies government has plans to demolish cathedral appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | News, World News |
A Lebanese Catholic priest has asked believers around the world to pray for the people of his country, after two explosions in Beirut injured hundreds of people and are reported to have left at least 10 people dead.
The post Lebanese priest: ‘We need your prayers’ after Beirut explosions appeared first on Catholic Herald.
Read MoreBy Lauretta Brown | WASHINGTON — As U.S. Catholic voters weigh their options ahead of Nov. 3, two events have shaped the 2020 presidential election in an unprecedented way: the global COVID-19 pandemic and…
Read More“In 22 press releases on immigrants and another 13 on refugees, the bishops attacked the administration’s policies as ‘misguided and untenable,’ ‘unacceptable,’ ‘appalling,’ ‘devastating,’ &ls…
Read More“Dear brother, I accompany you in sorrow for this act of vandalism and I am close to you and your people,” Pope Francis said following the firebomb attack. “I am praying for all of you.”
Read MoreThe Vatican Secretary of State recalled the French saint’s “simplicity, disinterestedness, purity of intention and action, asceticism, [and] fidelity to God and the sacraments.”
Read MoreThe Society is under investigation for priestly sexual abuse.
Read MoreKaduna State (map) is located in north-central Nigeria.
Read More“The department’s stance bars health insurers from banning or limiting health care coverage for transgender individuals for medical procedures that are otherwise covered, such as mastectomies for transgender men or breast enhancement for tr…
Read More“The cost of nuclear weapons should be measured not only in the lives destroyed through their use, but also the suffering of the poorest and most vulnerable people, who could have benefited were such vast sums of public money invested in the Comm…
Read MoreThe Pope’s August prayer intention is “for all those who work and live from the sea, among them sailors, fishermen and their families.” In the video, Pope Francis comments, “The life of sailors or fishermen and their families i…
Read MoreThe cathedral is located in Shaanxi Province (map).
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | Catholic Charities, Catholic Charities USA, Catholic Church, Catholic News Service, Church in the US, Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, News |
Scott Milliken has seen a lot of people come through the doors at the Father English Center’s food pantry during his years as CEO of Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Paterson, New Jersey, but not like the numbers since the coronavirus pandemic hit in March.
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | News, The Dispatch |
Last November 11, on the centenary of its relocation to a 93-acre campus in suburban Washington, D.C., Georgetown Preparatory School announced a $60 million capital campaign. In his message for the opening of the campaign, […]
Read MorePosted by bcadmin | Aug 5, 2020 | Catholic Church, Catholic News Service, Church in the US, Coronavirus, COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic, Diocese of Victoria, News, Texas |
For decades the Diocese of Victoria has announced date, theme, lineup, speakers and so on for its Catholic conference each fall. This year, there will be some changes due to COVID-19.
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