Catholic Nutshell News: Saturday 4/26/25
Topics include: Pope Francis’ complex relationships, Haiti is collapsing, Stories of Pope Francis’ funeral, & Activists protest Colorado bill on parental rights
“We see through new tender verdant pecan leaves”
Today's news sources are Aleteia, CRUX, Catholic News Agency, Our Sunday Visitor, National Catholic Register, Aleteia, and The Catholic Thing. (Catholic Nutshell is a subscription service for faithful, hopeful, & curious Catholics willing to exercise their Catholic News Muscle)
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National Catholic Register
Pope Francis’ complex relationship with the Jewish world
By Solène Tadié, April 25, 2025
From the beginning of his pontificate, Pope Francis’ long-standing ties with the Jewish community in his native Argentina, notably his close friendship with Rabbi Abraham Skorka, set the foundation for a promising development in Jewish-Catholic dialogue. These fruitful personal connections, however, have not translated into a broader theological or institutional deepening of Catholic-Jewish ties. Nor have they shielded the pontificate from moments of friction and misunderstanding, which experts attribute to Francis’ non-European provenance. This shifting of the Church’s center of gravity away from Europe toward regions where Jewish communities have historically been less present could also, over time, challenge the special status of Judaism in Catholic thinking.
Catholic News Agency
Pope Francis sought to build bridges with the Islamic world
By Souhail Lawand, April 26, 2025
From the beginning of his papacy in 2013, Pope Francis sought to build bridges with the Islamic world. This is a distinctly evangelical approach, following the example of Jesus, who, during his earthly life, deeply connected with those who differed from him and with people from outside his environment. By placing great importance on Christian-Islamic communication, Pope Francis took his cues from the saint whose name he chose to bear: Francis of Assisi, who created channels of communication between East and West in times marked by violence and bloodshed, similar to those of our day. The Second Vatican Council called for open dialogue with Muslims, sparking Francis’ signing of the Document on Human Fraternity for World Peace and Living Together with the grand imam of Al-Azhar, Ahmed al-Tayeb, in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Related: China largely silent on Pope Francis’ death amid global tributes - CNA - By Madalaine Elhabbal, April 24, 2025
Agenzia Fides
Haiti is collapsing, ‘opening the door to criminal gangs’
By Agenzia Fides, April 16, 2025
"The Haitian people are a martyred people (...) and the Church that is in communion with this people lives this suffering in its flesh", said Father Marc-Henry Siméon, spokesman for the Haitian Episcopal Conference, in a television debate broadcast by Radio Télé Métropole. Referring to the assassination of Sister Evanette Onezaire and Sister Jeanne Voltaire, of the Little Sisters of Saint Therese of the Child Jesus, killed on March 31 in Mirebalais about fifty kilometers north-east of the capital Port-au-Prince (see Fides, 3/4/2025), Father Siméon said that the security conditions in Mirebalais are so precarious that they have not yet made it possible to recover the bodies of the two nuns to offer them dignified funeral services.
Aleteia
Stories of Pope Francis’ funeral
Beautiful images from Pope Francis’ funeral - Kathleen N. Hattrup - published on 04/26/25 - The Holy Father's casket was taken back inside St. Peter's at 12:12 pm, local time, just at 2 hours after the funeral procession began.
Cardinal Re, the celebrant of Pope Francis’ funeral - I.Media - published on 04/26/25 - A figure embodying continuity between pontificates, Cardinal Re is one of the last “men of John Paul II” still active in the Roman Curia.
Our Lady invited Pope to have his tomb at her feet, says Cardinal - Kathleen N. Hattrup - I.Media - published on 04/25/25 - The Holy Father at first felt a duty to follow the tradition of his immediate predecessors, but Mary changed his mind.
Pope Francis’ coffin is closed in private rite - Kathleen N. Hattrup - published on 04/25/25 - Cardinal Camerlengo Kevin Farrell presided over the rite. The Master of Liturgical Celebrations read the rogitus, which was placed in the coffin at the end of the celebration. This text, currently only translated into Italian from Latin, gives an overview of the Pope's life and ministry.
CatholicVote
Activists protest Colorado bill ending custodial rights of parents
By Susan Berry, Ph.D., April 25, 2025
Republican lawmakers and parent activists of all political views are hoping to block a Colorado bill that would end the custody rights of parents who do not affirm the new “gender identities” of their children. The legislation has passed the state House but has yet to advance in the state Senate. As CatholicVote reported, the Colorado House voted 36-20 on April 6, mostly along party lines, to pass HB 25-1312 and send it to the state Senate. Republican lawmakers, who are the minority party in Colorado, and parents who identify with different political parties are joining together to fight the measure, which many are calling a “totalitarian” piece of legislation. The bill would make “misgendering” and “deadnaming,” i.e., calling a child by his or her birth name, acts of “discrimination” and, therefore, abusive.
CRUX
Criticism of Cardinal Mahony’s role in the papal funeral
By Charles Collins, April 25, 2025
Senior Catholic Church leaders are already discussing what the late Pope Francis’s successor will need to tackle first and foremost after his election, whenever it comes. On the agenda for the cardinals choosing a successor to Francis will be the scandal of sexual abuse and the crisis of cover-up that has been plaguing the Church for decades. That is one reason the news that Cardinal Roger Mahony, the retired archbishop of Los Angeles, would be taking part in the sealing of Pope Francis’s coffin on Friday was received with surprise and shock. The 89-year-old Mahony played a central role in the abuse scandal and was accused in 2013 of shielding priests from prosecution by having them moved to other dioceses when facing abuse allegations.
The PILLAR
Unusual papal burial places
By The Pillar, April 25, 2025
When Pope Francis is laid to rest at the Basilica of St. Mary Major on Saturday, he will be the first pope since Leo XIII to be buried somewhere other than St. Peter’s Basilica. Historically, it was not unusual for popes to be buried outside the Vatican walls. Only 90 of the 266 popes lie within St. Peter’s. Many were interred at other Roman basilicas. For example, the Archbasilica of St. John Lateran is the last resting place of 22 popes, including Leo XIII. In 885, Pope Adrian III left Rome and died and was buried near the northern Italian town of San Cesario sul Panaro. In 1047, Pope Clement II was buried in Bamberg Cathedral, becoming the only pope buried north of the Alps. The pious, austere Urban was the only Avignon pope to be beatified. Following his death in 1370, he was buried at Avignon but was later moved to the abbey. When Pope Gregory XII abdicated in 1415, in an attempt to resolve the Western Schism, he was buried in the local cathedral at Recanati, rather than in Rome or his native Venice, in a notably simple tomb for a pope.
Related: 7 popes are buried at St. Mary Major; Pope Francis will soon be the eighth - CNA - Apr 26, 2025, by Jonah McKeown
The Times of Israel
Intense fighting in Gaza: Katz says combat has ‘heavy prices’
By Emanuel Fabian and ToI Staff, April 26, 2025
Amid intense fighting in Gaza, Defense Minister Israel Katz said Friday that the Israel Defense Forces was making strides but paying a heavy price in the enclave, where a reservist was killed on Thursday and another was seriously wounded by RPG fire on Friday afternoon. “The achievements are great, but still, the dangers are great and the prices are heavy,” wrote Katz on X. His comments came as heavy strikes were reported in both the northern and southern Gaza Strip. An hour after Katz’s statement, the IDF issued an evacuation warning to Palestinians in the Zeitoun neighborhood of Gaza City ahead of Israeli strikes on the area in the Strip’s north. Mohammed al-Mughayyir, with Gaza’s Hamas-run civil defense rescue agency, told AFP that the death toll from Israeli strikes on Friday had risen to at least 40.
From CNA & Big Pulpit to Satire for 4/26/25
Catholic News Agency
CNA’s top headlines — April 26, 2025
Catholic News Agency provides reliable, free, up-to-the-minute news affecting the Universal Church, emphasizing the words of the Holy Father and happenings of the Holy See to anyone with access to the internet.
Catholic Relief Services ordered to pay ex-employee $60,000 in LGBT discrimination suit - Apr 25, 2025 - By Tyler Arnold - Catholic Relief Services (CRS) to pay a former employee $60,000 for its refusal to provide spousal health care benefits to the man’s civilly married “husband.”
Pope Francis and Africa: The many highs and a moment of misgiving - Apr 25, 2025 - By ACI Africa - Pope Francis’ more than 12-year pontificate deeply resonated with the people of God in Africa, with one exception related to the release of a controversial Vatican document.
German group slams bishops’ same-sex blessing guide issued after Pope Francis’ death - Apr 25, 2025 - By Madalaine Elhabbal - A small but influential Catholic group in Germany called “New Beginning” has issued a blistering statement protesting the release of a new handout, “Blessings for Couples Who Love Each Other,” by the German Bishops’ Conference (DBK).
The Big Pulpit
Tito Edwards Catholic blogger site: April 26, 2025
The Big Pulpit website is an intelligent news aggregator offering quality insight & analysis on the Catholic Church worldwide. Here are Chief Editor Tito Edward’s top recommendations for today.
Persecution in Nigeria, Muslims Mass to Slaughter Christians – Truth Nigeria
Why This Leftist “Catholic” Group Is Dying – John Horvat, II, at Tradition, Family, & Property
Catholic Brawl Over Talmud on X – Joseph Shaw Tangles with Avoiding Babylon Host Anthony
Pope Francis’ Papacy Already Seems Like a Relic of a Bygone Age – Matthew Archbold at CMR
Babylon Bee’s Satire News
'You're Going To Make It,' Says TV ER Doctor To Patient Who's Definitely Going To Die At The End Of The Episode
By Entertainment Staff, April 24, 2024
A new episode of hit hospital drama Danger Hospital started with a bang when an ER doctor told a patient who was going to die by the end of the episode that he was going to make it. The patient, suffering from wounds as a result of a violent hate crime, was rushed to the ER just as popular recurring character Dr. Gary Miles was about to go home after a 12-hour shift. "You're going to be just fine. You're going to make it!" said Dr. Miles to the patient, even though he would die by the end of the episode. "I'm a doctor. I know these things." But the patient did not make it. He died, quite suddenly, of total organ failure. Later, fans anticipated the conclusion of a new subplot introduced during the episode in which a healthy person with a routine broken arm would suddenly and catastrophically die of the bubonic plague.
Nutshell reflections for 4/26/25:
USCCB Daily Reflection - AUDIO & VIDEO - April 26, 2025
Saturday in the Octave of Easter
Word on Fire
René Girard explains us to ourselves
By Katy Carl, April 25, 2025
These days, René Girard seems to be everywhere. It’s more than fair to say that this twentieth-century anthropologist, literary critic, and scholar of religion is enjoying a resurgence of popularity. Two recent treatments of his life and legacy, Fr. Elias Carr’s book I Came to Cast Fire (Word on Fire, 2024) and the documentary Things Hidden (Glass Darkly Films, 2024), propose to expound his thought and to help explain its resonance. Girard’s apocalypse, said Luke Burgis, author of the book Wanting, is “the final culmination in the great unveiling of who God is and who we are.” As in Scripture, this apocalypse is first a revelation, a fulfillment. If it is an end, it is even more a beginning. By giving himself freely, out of love, Christ destroys not only the power of the crowd to determine the meaning of his acts but also the power of evil to accuse, blame, and shame.
The Catholic Thing
A contradiction in terms: Thinking the eternal ‘develops’
By Anthony Esolen, April 23, 2025
The eternal does not “develop.” That is a contradiction in terms. So says our Lord, in the days before his Passion, when he spoke to his disciples of the last days and the coming of the Son of Man in glory. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” he says, “but my words will not pass away.” (Matthew 24:35) The prophecy stands on the border of time and eternity. It is meant not only to convey the future, as Jesus does when he says that the last days shall be as in the days of Noah. (Matthew 24:37) It is meant to turn their eyes beyond time, above the stars, for “in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.” (Genesis 1:1) If our progress in cultural matters were regular, reliable, and noticeable (it is not), that does not mean Christ and His words are subject to the same experimentation with their successes and failures.
Bishop Barron
Obstacles from our ‘get-along’ culture
By Bishop Robert Barron, April 26, 2025
Friends, in today’s Gospel, Jesus commissions his disciples to “go into the whole world and proclaim the Gospel to every creature.” The Church doesn’t have a mission; the Church is a mission. A passionate Catholicism brings people to Christ, like the four people who lowered the paralytic through the roof to get him to Jesus. An evangelizing Catholicism shouts from the rooftops, grabs people by the lapels, and speaks with urgency and energy about Jesus. This has to be done with great respect and love, but very often, obstacles that come from our “get-along” culture, and perhaps from an exaggerated ecumenism, keep it from getting done at all. We have not been successful in our Christianity unless and until we have brought others to the Lord.
First Things
Classicists often don’t know how to talk to normal people
By Jaspreet Singh Boparai, April 25, 2025
According to stereotype, classicists often don’t know how to talk to normal people. Nor do they know how to talk to bureaucrats, or administrators, or the powerful, as evidenced by the cascading disappearance of classics departments in schools and colleges over the past half-century. Take a graduate from any university classics department, select a random page of Latin or Greek text, and ask him to translate it by sight with at least 75% accuracy. Then give him a simple piece of English prose and ask him to translate it into one of the ancient languages. You will find that even intelligent graduates from prestigious institutions will generally fail your test. As will plenty of faculty. Classicists in college institutions suffer from the same fundamental problem that persists at all levels of the discipline: Classicists aren’t confident in the value of their own field.
Image of Pecans by tseiu from Pixabay
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