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Boston Globe
a day ago
- Politics
- Boston Globe
Mass. residents: We will not be bystanders to ICE thuggery
Advertisement It's daunting, but a powerful counterforce has emerged: communities of faith. They include groups of Catholics, Protestants, Jews, Muslims, and others. Get The Gavel A weekly SCOTUS explainer newsletter by columnist Kimberly Atkins Stohr. Enter Email Sign Up The American Catholic hierarchy has stepped up as well. Michael Pham, then San Diego bishop-elect, Here in Boston, the Paulist Center, where we worship, has an active Advertisement Communities of faith are a powerful and growing force for resistance to injustice and the pursuit of the common good. They are worthy of your journalistic attention. Christopher M. O'Keeffe Marlborough Mi-Rang Yoon Malden We need Governor Healey to lead resistance It is not only immigrants who are frightened by the masked thugs of ICE that the rogue Trump administration has loosed upon the US citizenry, in what seems like an attempt to cow ordinary Americans. There are many others throughout the community who view these vicious actions with some trepidation. Indeed, many people of this great Commonwealth stand with indomitable spirit against the illegal and unconstitutional actions of this administration. But we need the help of our governor to continue to do so. The primary duty of our governor is to protect Massachusetts residents from harm. It is within the governor's authority to Governor Maura Healey, please exercise that power and authorize the Guard to monitor the actions of ICE agents and to ascertain that those agents are clearly identified, carry legal warrants, and never, ever use bodily force on peaceful citizens. Bill Tragakis Westwood The Founders must be turning in their graves For the past several years we have been helping two legal refugee families. They were originally expected to arrive in 2016, but that was delayed until Donald Trump left office after his first term. They are thriving: men gainfully employed; women raising children, who are excelling in school; English nearly mastered. Now permanent residents, they eagerly await becoming US citizens. Advertisement We also have been helping those less fortunate, who are undocumented but otherwise hoping someday to become permanent residents. The lack of a legal pathway for these families, who are essential to our economic future, is the fault of the GOP for opposing immigration reform at every turn. The Republican Party began in opposition to slavery; undoubtedly the Founders are turning in their graves as they watch America, the country immigrants have made and continue to make great, be ripped apart for no reason other than one party's hunger to amass power through the politics of fear. Alan Wright Roslindale
Belfast Telegraph
14-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Belfast Telegraph
My life as an exorcist: ‘I have been spat at, punched, choked, bitten and kicked by demons'
Sarah Mac Donald meets leading exorcist Stephen Rossetti as he is mobbed by the faithful at Knock. Spiritual warfare against the forces of darkness can involve vomiting, levitation, growling voices and flying objects It is one of cinema's most iconic images. The silhouette of a priest in a black fedora hat and overcoat, armed with a black briefcase, paused in the eerie foggy light of a streetlamp. He cuts a solitary figure. An exorcist about to tackle paranormal horror in the house before him. But this evocative portrayal in 'the scariest film ever made' does not match the reality today according to Monsignor Stephen Rossetti, an American Catholic priest, who is a licensed psychologist and an exorcist. 'The old idea of an exorcist being a single guy walking in with his black suitcase: those days are over,' he told Review in Knock last weekend. These days, exorcists work as part of a team. 'We have psychologists. We have medical doctors. We have clinicians. We have tough guys to pull the person down and someone who deals with the person outside the session.'
Yahoo
30-05-2025
- General
- Yahoo
The Other American ‘Popes'
WHEN WHITE SMOKE DRIFTED over the Sistine Chapel and the name Leo XIV was announced earlier this month, billions of Catholics and non-Catholics alike around the world raced to learn more about the new pontiff. Born Robert Francis Prevost and raised in Chicago, he is the first American to ascend to the papacy. He is a product of an American Catholic family and an alumnus of American Catholic institutions, having graduated from Villanova and the Catholic Theological Union in Chicago before joining the Order of St. Augustine and spending years in missionary service in Peru. As news of his election spread, so did Chicago-themed memes and other displays of hometown pride. A small number of Americans, though, believe we've already had an American pope. Unrecognized by the Vatican and distant from mainstream Roman Catholicism, a handful of would-be pontiffs have made claims to the throne of St. Peter, enjoying support from internet users, eliciting the curiosity of many who came across them, and attracting followings—dedicated if not large. Few of these figures ever set foot in a seminary, let alone rose through the clerical ranks; you won't find them in cathedrals or basilicas. Their holy haunts are garages, rental halls, and the occasional roadside chapel. And while they can be found at the very edge of the religious fringe, these figures personify the continuing challenges to papal authority presented by and within our postmodern age. The main thing that unites this diverse bunch of papal claimants is their shared rejection of Vatican II. Convened between 1962 and 1965, the Second Vatican Council was a landmark effort by the Roman Catholic Church to engage more directly with the modern world. Initiated by Pope John XXIII, the council introduced sweeping reforms: It permitted the Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages rather than Latin, emphasized ecumenical dialogue with Orthodox and Protestant communities, redefined the Church's relationship with non-Christian religions (especially Judaism), and shifted the Church's tone from one of hierarchical authority to one of pastoral outreach. For many, these changes felt like an enlivening wind, in keeping with Pope John's (possibly apocryphal) call to 'open the windows of the Church' and let some fresh air into it. Chief among the council's champions was Pope John Paul II, who had attended Vatican II as a young bishop and later embodied its spirit through global outreach, interfaith dialogue, and a renewed emphasis on human dignity. He also helped modernize the papacy itself, embracing television, global travel, and media interviews to bring the Church's message to a wider, contemporary audience. Keep up with all The Bulwark's articles, newsletters, podcasts, and livestreams—and pick which ones show up in your inbox: But while some Catholics found Vatican II exhilarating, for others, it was deeply disorienting. Many Catholics felt alienated by the rapid changes, whether because they preferred the Latin Mass or were uncomfortable with various other reforms. This sense of upheaval gave rise to movements like the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), founded by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1970, which flatly rejected key aspects of Vatican II and has maintained an uneasy relationship with Rome ever since while undergoing continuous institutional and communal growth. Even among conservative Catholics who don't go as far as SSPX, Vatican II remains a point of deep concern and contention, and it remains an abiding preoccupation among hyperonline Catholic commentators. The resurgence of young Catholic women wearing veils, the renewed popularity of the Latin Mass, and the proliferation of apologists defending every conceivable Church teaching all point to a growing skepticism toward, or at least a re-evaluation of, Vatican II's more open ethos. There are also those so radical as to not only reject the council but also to deny the legitimacy of the popes who have upheld it. These are the sedevacantists—those who believe 'the seat'—sedes, referring to the papal throne—is 'vacant,' which is to say, the one who currently occupies it is illegitimate. Sedevacantists hold that this has been the case since the 1958 death of Pope Pius XII on the grounds that all officially recognized popes since Vatican II have embraced its alleged heresies. In the words of Philippe Roy-Lysencourt, a scholar of Catholic traditionalism, 'For these movements, the council is like a foreign body in the life of the Church, like a cancer to be fought.' While its community of adherents is small and fragmented, sedevacantism represents the furthest extreme of traditionalist dissent—after all, who else would answer 'no' to the question, 'Is the Pope Catholic?' And way out at the furthest reaches of the sedevacantist world, we find a handful of those who, unwilling to wait for a legitimate pope to emerge, have taken matters into their own hands. These are the people who have conducted their own conclaves in living rooms and hotel conference rooms, and who claim to have found St. Peter's true successor living in their own hometowns. Share THE STORY OF OUR COUNTRY'S original homegrown papal claimant must be regarded as a prelude, because his actions took place decades before the Second Vatican Council that would unite the later generation of faux popes in opposition to it. Adam Anthony Oraczewski, a Polish-born immigrant, declared himself 'Pope Adam II' in 1927 following several years of religious mischief, fraud, and forgery, much of his behavior likely resulting from undiagnosed mental illness. At one point, he circulated a photo to newspapers that depicted him in an approximation of papal garb; a reporter at one of the papers pointed out that the young would-be pontiff had left his tennis shoes on for the picture. It would be half a century before the first of the Vatican II–rejecting American-born papal claimants would emerge. Chester Olszewski was originally an Episcopal priest in Pennsylvania. After encountering Anne Poore, a visionary claiming miraculous experiences and stigmata, Olszewski embraced a radical traditionalist Catholicism. He would eventually claim to receive his own mystical visions, and in 1977, he proclaimed himself Pope 'Chriszekiel Elias,' later adopting the name 'Peter II.' He led a small sect calling itself the True Catholic Church, rooted in apocalyptic Marian devotion; it has since faded into obscurity. A little over two decades later, in 1998, Lucian Pulvermacher, a former Capuchin friar from Wisconsin, was elected pope by a roughly fifty-member conclave of sedevacantist lay people associated with the True Catholic Church network. Taking the name 'Pius XIII,' he operated his ministry and issued papal decrees from a trailer in Kalispell, Montana, and later from Springdale, Washington. He died on November 30, 2009, at the age of 91. His followers' plans to convene a new conclave to choose a successor have so far come to naught. Another: Citing inspiration via mystical revelation, Reinaldus M. Benjamins of Malone, New York, claimed to be 'Pope Gregory XIX.' But as 'alternative popes' researcher Magnus Lundberg writes, little is known of Benjamins today. But the best-known American claimant to the papacy is the late David Bawden, known to many by his chosen papal name of 'Pope Michael I.' Born in Oklahoma in 1959 and raised in a fiercely traditionalist Catholic household, David Bawden came of age believing that the Second Vatican Council was not a reform but a rupture, one that cut the institutional Church off from its own timeless teachings and liturgical beauty. His family refused to attend the post-conciliar Mass, clung to pre-1958 catechisms, and eventually aligned with the dissenting SSPX. Bawden enrolled in an SSPX seminary but was dismissed after a brief tenure, prompting him to pursue his theological education on his own—through books, correspondence with traditionalist and sedevacantist Catholics, and fervent prayer. By the mid-1980s, he had moved on from the SSPX to embrace outright sedevacantism. Join now Convinced that the Catholic Church was in a state of emergency, Bawden took a radical step. In 1990, at the age of 30, he gathered five others (including his parents) into a makeshift conclave in a Kansas thrift store chapel. They elected him pope by unanimous vote. He took the name 'Michael I' and claimed divine sanction to restore what Rome had lost. From a farmhouse-turned-chapel in Delia, Kansas, he spent the next three decades issuing papal decrees, publishing newsletters, and maintaining a website called 'Vatican in Exile.' Toward the end of his life, he had a channel on YouTube, a platform on which his sermons, theological discussions, interviews, and explanations of his papal claim have been watched by thousands. While many dismissed him as a crank, a curiosity, a theological prank, or a person disturbed in the manner of his predecessor Oraczewski, Bawden's sincerity was difficult to deny. As documented in the 2010 film Pope Michael, he lived with monastic simplicity, took no salary, and led a quiet life of devotion alongside his elderly mother, Tickie. He prayed daily for the Church, answered emails from curious seekers, and carried out his self-imposed papal duties with unwavering conviction. In 2011, after more than two decades without the ability to celebrate the sacraments (despite claiming to be pope), Bawden was ordained a priest and consecrated a bishop by Robert Biarnesen, an independent bishop from a schismatic Old Catholic lineage (he himself had only just been consecrated a month prior by Bishop Alexander Swift Eagle Justice). Because Bawden had never been ordained by a bishop, valid or otherwise, prior to this, he had taken himself to be unable to perform even the most basic sacramental duties of the priesthood, let alone exercise the full authority of his alternative papacy. Beginning in 2011, though, Bawden at last felt authorized to celebrate Mass, hear confessions, and ordain others, a possibility that he seized with his first (and possibly only) seminarian, Phil Friedl. His movement remained minuscule, with perhaps a few dozen core followers, but the internet gave Pope Michael surprising reach, drawing adherents from as far away as India and the Philippines. One of those, a Filipino bishop named Rogelio Martínez, became his right-hand man and, after Bawden's death in 2022, Martínez was elected by his predecessor's remaining followers to become 'Pope Michael II.' He still posts to the movement's YouTube channel, but viewership remains scarce. Share LEO XIV'S PAPACY HAS NOW BEGUN. The Chicagoan begins his tenure at a time when papal authority is contested. Pope Francis, pastoral reformer that he was, was a figure of great controversy among both liberals and conservatives in the Church, and especially among hyperonline traditionalists, for whom he represented a corruption of the office. For years, such figures accused him of sowing confusion, undermining tradition, and embracing a modernist agenda. Some of his critics began to flirt openly with sedevacantist ideas, creating a cultural commotion in the Church. So it is that in our digital present, when YouTube apologists, livestreamed liturgies, and anonymous Twitter accounts shape the Catholic imagination, the claims of figures like Bawden no longer feel quite so radical or strange. This is part of what Leo XIV has inherited from Francis: a Church that is struggling, along with every other societal institution, to find its way in an increasingly chaotic information environment—a virtual world in which, it seems, everyone gets to be their very own pope. Zap this article over to a friend or zip it up onto social media: Share
Yahoo
13-05-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Salesian Missions welcomes Pope Leo XIV, first American-born Pope
NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y., May 13, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesian Missions, the U.S. development arm of the Salesians of Don Bosco, joins the Salesian Congregation and Catholics around the globe to welcome the election of Pope Leo XIV — His Eminence, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost — as the 267th successor of St. Peter, to lead the Catholic Church and 1.4 billion faithful around the world. "The election of Pope Leo XIV will bring a great sense of pride to our donors as well as a deeper sense of connection to him and the Church," said Father Michael Conway, director of Salesian Missions. Pope Leo XIV — elected the first ever American Catholic Pope — is lauded as a unifier and is expected to foster a more global church. "More than ever, we need a strong moral voice to encourage open dialogue and inspire the global community and Christians worldwide to work for peace and justice," said Fr. Conway. Pope Leo's extensive missionary work closely aligns with Salesian Missions in focusing on social issues like migration and poverty. "As an Augustinian missionary for many years, Pope Leo XIV encountered people from diverse backgrounds and oftentimes in situations of extreme poverty," said Fr. Conway. "His missionary ministry made him much more aware of the plight of the poor and migrants. His choosing of the name Leo reflects the prior ministry of Pope Leo XIII who was instrumental in establishing the foundation of the Church's social teaching with a special emphasis on the poor and marginalized." On behalf of the Salesian Congregation and the entire Salesian Family, the Rector Major Father Fabio Attard offered heartfelt greetings to the Holy Father at the start of his pontificate. In his message, the Rector Major assured the new Pope of the Salesian devotion and prayers, invoking the Holy Spirit to guide him with wisdom and strength so that his ministry may be a beacon of hope, unity, and peace for the Church and the world. Fr. Conway said that he is excited and proud as both an American and as a member of a religious order about the election of Pope Leo XIV. "He brings a diverse background of experiences that will greatly assist him in his ministry especially as a pastor. His selection reminds us that the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Church is still active and effective and that, when all is said and done, God is in charge. I take comfort in believing this," he said. Salesian programs are operated by more than 30,000 Salesian missionaries in more than 130 countries around the globe. Salesian programs provide poor youth and their families access to education, workforce development, humanitarian relief, youth clubs, health services, feeding programs and more. About Salesian Missions USASalesian Missions is headquartered in New Rochelle, N.Y., and is part of the Don Bosco Network — a worldwide federation of Salesian NGOs. The mission of the U.S.-based nonprofit Catholic organization is to raise funds for international programs that serve youth and families in poor communities around the globe. The Salesian missionaries are made up of priests, brothers and sisters, as well as laypeople — all dedicated to caring for poor children throughout the world in more than 130 countries and helping young people become self-sufficient by learning a trade that will help them gain employment. To date, more than 3 million youth have received services funded by Salesian Missions. These services and programs are provided to children regardless of race or religion. For more information, go to Contact:Laura Perillomedia@ Twitter: @MissionNewswireNewswire: room: View original content: SOURCE Salesian Missions Error in retrieving data Sign in to access your portfolio Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data Error in retrieving data
Irish Independent
11-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Irish Independent
Brendan O'Connor: When it comes to Catholicism and camogie, now everyone's an expert
Today at 21:30 You feel it will come as a shock to some people when the euphoria wears off and they realise the Pope is not only a Catholic, but also, in fact, a priest. Initially, the main gist people got was that he was an American. An American Catholic, yes. But they're not really proper Catholics, are they, Ted? Old World Catholics have never really taken Johnny-Come-Lately American Catholics seriously. There's a feeling they don't really get it. They don't fully understand that it's about misery and suffering and shame and giving stuff up for Lent. They' re a bit too upbeat for European tastes. And don't even get us started on American priests. 'A bit too worldly,' would be the traditional attitude here towards them. A bit too normal to be real priests. Our own priests used to even get infected with it when they went there. They'd come back on 'holidays', as if they were ordinary people. And they seemed to enjoy going out to dinner a little bit too much, a bit too comfortable in the old restaurants, these lads, after a few years in America. Indeed, in general they often seemed to have too much of what you might call a social life. They seemed to have friends, some of whom might even be nuns, and some who weren't even in the clergy at all. We're also suspicious that Pope Leo looks too much like a normal person. But maybe that'll wear off as he leans in to being more papal. The problem could be that he's too young: 69! He'd barely have moved out of his parents' house if he lived in Ireland. Sixty-nine is young for a Pope but old for a broadcaster. There was obviously a brief flurry of speculation when Joe Duffy announced his retirement and we then suddenly found out we had a Pope. Joe the Confessor isn't technically a priest obviously, but maybe the conclave had decided on a radical move? Then more speculation began. Would the next presenter of Liveline continue in Joe's spirit of liberalism or would the more conservative wing of RTÉ try to get their candidate in? Joe had of course been anointed by Pope Gay, who was conservative enough by modern standards but who was seen as a liberalising force at the time. Between all that and skorts, it was a relief for people to be able to focus on news that was easy to have an opinion on and that had absolutely no consequences for them. Most of the people pontificating about the future of the Catholic Church hadn't gone near a church in years, and were basing their thoughts mainly on the movie Conclave. Similarly, not knowing your camogie from your Ogie Moran didn't stop everyone having a view on the skorts, though that seems, in fairness, like a no-brainer. And people who didn't listen to Liveline much were gutted over Joe, because they liked knowing he was there. Luckily, by the time it emerges that the Pope is indeed a Catholic, who seems pretty hardline on women priests, abortion and matters LGBTQ+, we'll all have moved on to be instant experts in whatever the next pressing issue of the day is.
