Catholic Church

By Matthew B. O’Brien, First Things - In 2017, Cardinal Donald Wuerl provided false and misleading information to the board of the Papal Foundation to secure a $25 million grant for the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), a scandal-plagued hospital in Rome.Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin requested this grant from the Papal Foundation in June 2017, on behalf of Pope Francis. When the Papal Foundation board met in December 2017 to discuss the grant, Wuerl made two false assertions which were recorded in the meeting minutes.

By Paul Kengor, The Stream - The image of the Cathedral of Notre Dame engulfed in flames will remain seared in memories. I was made aware of it when a student burst into my office shouting that the magnificent church was on fire. I was about to head into my Major European Governments course, where we read George Weigel’s prescient work, The Cube and the Cathedral. The Cathedral in the book is Notre Dame.

By Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, Catholic Exchange - Talk about a disconnect and you have the greatest example in Jesus’ triumphant entry into Jerusalem. He knows every single thing that awaited Him in Jerusalem – His betrayal by Judas, Peter denying Him, the Twelve deserting Him, the enthusiastic crowd eventually turning on Him, His being handed over to the Jewish leaders, His mock trial and sentence, His being scourged and mocked and eventually nailed on the cross.

By Father Roger J. Landry, National Catholic Register - Except among the devout who live Holy Week as a sacred octave, Monday of Holy Week is normally low-key, a day seemingly like any other, when many believers and nonbelievers succumb to the practical atheism of living as if God were absent… Not this year… When Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Christianity’s second-most famous Church, was ablaze and risked being reduced to ashes, it was impossible to forget God. Many across the world stopped and turned sad eyes toward the live images coming from the banks of the Seine. Believers and nonbelievers prayed that, by some miracle, the water would outpace the flames and the munificent 859-year-old sanctuary would see an 860th year.