Leon J. Podles :: DIALOGUE

Santa Muerte and “Bishop” David Romo Guillén

The faithful followers of Santa Muerte, the Death Saint, are unhappy that the government destroyed the shrines they had built on public land (see blog below).

One bishop, according to the Washington Post, agreed with them
But the destruction enraged Death Saint church leaders, including archbishop David Romo who in [...]

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Der Spiegel notes this anniversary: The thousand bloody days of the Spanish Civil War ended in March 1939 when Franco marched into Madrid. The killing was not over.

Probably 200,000 human beings were killed in the name of Franco’s name in the Civil War in in the years after the war. But in their [...]

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Everyone recognizes that music can affect the listener’s mood – that is why most people listen to music. Can music also either directly or through the mood affect the body? That is more debatable, but some therapists are convinced it can. The New York Times reports:
“Listening to finer music and attending concerts on a consistent [...]

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White-collar perpetrators of fraud are a popular target of rage, with good reason. I have lost a substantial amount to fraud over the years, including some to Bernie Madoff – and I’m not even Jewish. It is therefore extremely satisfying to see such crooks enjoy the hospitality of the Department of Corrections.

The New York Times [...]

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Archbishop Dadeus Grings

Catholic clerics have not learned that one must be ultra-cautious in making any statement about the Holocaust. Jews are understandably sensitive about anything that tends to minimize their unimaginable suffering.

Archbishop Dadeus Grings of Porto Alegre in Brazil has not learned this lesson.

According to reports here, here, here, and here he has said

The [...]

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The AP had a curious story about Mexico:

Officials in Nuevo Laredo have destroyed more than 35 statues dedicated to a “Death Saint” popular with drug traffickers.
The statues, most depicting a robe-covered skeleton resembling the Grim Reaper, lined highways and roads in and around the Mexican city on the border with Texas. One of the statues [...]

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The future Dr. Svensson of Sweden

One possible source of the Vatican’s lax attitude to sexual abusers in the clergy is that the Vatican is staffed by Europeans who consider America’s harsh punishments of crime barbaric.

Sweden, the New York Times reports, has a convicted neo-Nazi murderer in medical school.

Mr. Svensson…was convicted in the 1999 hate [...]

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The headline of the NYT article says it all: Its Population Falling, Russia Beckons Its Children Home.
The United Nations predicts that the country will fall to 116 million people by 2050, from 141 million now, an 18 percent decline, largely because of a low birthrate and poor health habits.
Abortion and contraception are entrenched in [...]

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Benedict, when he was Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, eyed the cult of personality in the Catholic Church (including the cult surrounding John Paul II) with a hairy eyeball. He did not want a cult of personality when he became Pope, and his sometimes unconsidered remarks and actions have guaranteed that there is no cult of personality [...]

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My daughter, a painter who has fled Florida for a northern art school, is visiting us in Naples and noticed the progress of the arts in the town of Ave Maria, Florida. The Naples Daily News reports:
The Ave Maria Gallery and History Exhibit has opened in La Piazza, the town center of Ave Maria, a [...]

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The Vatican and the Legion of Christ have decided to maintain a discrete silence about Maciel. Perhaps a further statement will be forthcoming, as promised, or perhaps the Vatican and the Legion count on the short attention span of the public.

The Legion has admitted that Maciel fathered a child in his old age and was [...]

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On the West Coast a new college chapel:
Chapel of Our Lady of the Most Holy Trinity, Thomas Aquinas College, Ojai, California. Architect: Professor Duncan Stroik, School of Architecture, University of Notre Dame. Cost $22 million.

On the East Coast, a new university oratory
Oratory, Ave Maria College, Ave Maria, Collier County, Florida. Architect: Thomas Monaghan, founder [...]

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Allan Carlson has emphasized that a government can’t buy a higher birthrate. Generous family allowances may encourage couples to have their children earlier in life, but the ultimate birthrate is not affected.

This seems to have happened in Germany. The German government is concerned about the abysmal birthrate in Germany and increased family allowances. Der Spiegel [...]

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The American Religious Identification Survey has come out. Americans of European descent leave the Catholic Church at about the same rate that Episcopalians leave the Episcopal Church. The Catholic numbers stay the same because the gap is filled by Latinos. Because immigration in Europe is Moslem rather than Catholic, the decline of Catholicism is more [...]

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As heresy fanciers will remember, Donatism was a North African heresy that denied that sacraments administered by serious sinful priests were valid.

Some bishops were accused of handing over (tradere) the Scriptures to pagan authorities during the last great persecution. These bishops were called traditores, handers-over, or traitors.

The Donatists set up their own hierarchy and rebaptized [...]

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