Resisting Reform
As many saints, scholars and sundry others have discovered, reform is a difficult business. Reforming oneself is hard enough, in others, more difficult still, and in an entity as ancient and set-in-its ways as the Vatican, nearly impossible. Hence, we may surmise, the resignation of Libero Milone, a financial peritus hired two years ago to reform the byzantine and allegedly venal and corrupt financial situation in that political entity known since 1929 as the ‘Vatican City State’, a 110 acre country within the centre of Rome. As John Allen concludes in his article, it is another blow in Pope Francis’ attempt at reform.
There is a complicated history to the evolution and constitution of the ‘Vatican’, for the Church is not just a spiritual entity, but requires a temporal basis for its earthly activity, a ‘state’ with its own whole system of laws, postage, citizenship, governance and, yes, finance. And where there is money, the flies will gather, all seeking their crumb.
Such an imbalance and concentration in wealth, even outright corruption, afflicts not just the Vatican, but every temporal entity this side of heaven. The temptation is always to want more than our fair share, and to justify it. To take but a few examples amongst many, health care, once carried out with joy by legions of sacrificing Sister and Brothers, is now done by highly-compensated professionals, nearly all of whom make well into the six figures, many multiple times that, a financial burden that is bringing the whole system to the brink of collapse. And many are unhappy and unfulfilled. CEO’s, upper management and shareholders of most companies make hundreds of times more than the workers who actually make their products. Lawyers bill the ‘system’, aka, their clients, often hundreds of dollars per hour, convinced that they are well worth it, but in turn making the legal system either inaccessible to many, or a path to quick bankruptcy for those who must. Politicians vote themselves consistent pay raises, along with their own myriad of employees, and so on it goes.
The whole world needs reforming. Of course, most such individuals work within the law, but we should have the right to question the ‘law’, and the custom of how various jobs are compensated. Added to these imbalances in the system, there are also those who graft, bribe, steal, horde and in general rob and take what they can get away with, if you forgive my dangling preposition.
In the midst of all this, why should the Vatican in its temporal dimension be any different, and any easier to reform?
Ah well, one is tempted just to let them have their lucre, so long as they leave enough of the crumbs for the Church to lumber on in her mission, less encumbered with the cares of the world. Through all of her members’ imperfections, even through the greed, avarice and ambition, Christ is there in the midst. We just have to keep our eyes and ears open and attuned to the spiritual dimension, through prayer, contemplation and, as Cardinal Sarah has so forcefully reminded us, golden and beautiful silence, in which God speaks to our heart, even, perhaps especially, in the midst of affliction. For ‘noise’ is not just ‘sound’, but also all those riches and cares that weigh down the heart, making it calcified and hard, resistant to those whispers that are the grace of God. As Christ reminds us in today’s Gospel from Luke: Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things. Only one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her.
As Pope Francis, in his final homily for the summer, reiterating the advice I was given by a wise woman once, said that our God is a God of surprises, Who often acts when we least expect, when all we have left is a slender, spider-web-thin trust in Him. He can clean out any Augean stables far better than the mythological Hercules, in His own good time. It is that steadfast faith and hope in the goodness and providence of God, and not in the riches of this world, that will lead us to our final end of glory with Him forever.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→
Saint Jean-Baptiste de la Salle: A Teacher for Teachers
Jean-Baptiste de la Salle (1651 – 1719), a French nobleman, ordained a priest, founded the first order in the Church’s history entirely without priests, and this came about almost by accident. I say ‘almost’, for, of course, there are no accidents with God. Destined for ordination from an early age, Jean-Baptiste never looked back, even[…]Continue reading→