The story is loved, especially by lots of young girls, as one of love, and properly so. But it is also, and more importantly, one of hope and the fulfilment of the promises of suffering. It’s the nature of the Real to win. Moral reality is no different from other kinds, like math and physics. It always wins. One characteristic of the sides in LOTR was the different approaches to suffering.

Mike Matt to Massimo Faggioli, James Martin SJ, Austen Ivereigh and the whole crew covering for Francis: “If your only response to this list of credible accusations against Pope Francis and some of his men, if your only response is to attack archbishop Vigano you are part of the cover-up. Otherwise you’d be adding your voice to ours and calling for a full investigation, if for no other reason than to clear the name of your boy Pope Francis.

“Hey, no harm; no foul. They were all over the legal age…Except that one time…”   There is a lot of squid ink being squirted out on the innernet about the Vigano thing. One of the talking points seems to be, “We’re not talking about crimes because McCarrick’s victims were not minors.” Uh… guys? Let’s just ask the female acquaintances of Harvey Weinstein, shall we? Can you imagine the response if a Hollywood producer had used the excuse for his casting couch, “Well, she wasn’t under age…” We live in a time when looking at a woman the wrong way is a prosecutable offense.

“Look! Over there! Fluffy bunnies!” (rumoured to be Cardinal Wuerl’s final words before hustling onto the plane for Rome.) ~ The Vatican wants to know: What are YOU doing to “care for creation”? Did you know you might have a vocation to care for creation? This just in via email, made my morning. Hey. So, is tomorrow the day that your weather turns nice? If so, I’m jealous. I just wanted to be sure I wished you a very happy and blessed and fruitful World Day of Prayer for Creation and Our Common Home.

Is someone punking me? UPDATE: Oh yeah… totally being punked. Too bad.   My original Tweet: Laurence’s response: ~

“Ho! Ha ha! Guard! Turn! Parry! Dodge! Spin! Ha! Thrust!” When are these idiots going to understand that you just don’t mess with Ed Pentin? Does no one remember the audio recording of Kasper insulting the African bishops? Helloooo? Archbishop Gänswein, who is also prefect of the Pontifical Household, denied as “fake news” this assertion as reported by The New York Times, alleging that Benedict had “confirmed Viganò’s account.

I just wrote this ridiculously long thread on Twitter. I’ll only add that though I’m glad Mike has finally got on board, (video here) the way he did it was, to be perfectly frank and given all the crap he’s given a lot of people over the years, churlish and ungracious. Dude, don’t be that guy. Taylor Marshall and Dom Betinelli have done the more manly thing recently – admitted they were mistaken and wrong to have attacked people who should have been their friends and apologised.

Maybe it’s not prudent to repost this now. I don’t know. But I’m just thinking way back to a conversation I had with a curial cardinal in at the end of January 2014. I think that given Vigano has gone in to hiding – no joke there – I will not even now identify the cardinal in the story. This is from a blog post I did after I got home – exhausted, a bit ill and very out of sorts – from a few days in a monastery in Tuscany.

via GIPHY

Just a suggestion that comes to mind regarding possible responses by monasteries of contemplative nuns concerned about maintaining the integrity of their charisms in the face of the demands of the Congregation for Religious. I’m not a nun, but if I were, and the monastery I was in charge of received a letter from those criminals and perverts in Rome demanding immediate compliance with Cor orans, I’m not sure my response wouldn’t be something like…