19 September 2020

• Catholics respond after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg dies at 87...
  Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, who served on the court for more than 27 years, died of pancreatic cancer Sept. 18. She was 87.
• Jesuit Father Paul Mankowski was a man for strengthening others...
  When the choirs of angels led Father Paul Mankowski, SJ, into the Father’s House on September 3, I hope the seraphic choirmaster chose music appropriate to the occasion. Had I been asked, I would have suggested the Latin antiphon Ecce sacerdos magnus as arranged by Anton Bruckner. The all-stops-pulled moments in Bruckner’s composition, deploying organ, brass, and full choir, would have been a perfect match...
• This NYMag article, published two months ago, considers the possible implications of an election-season Ruth Bader Ginsburg death...
  There should be no doubt that Donald Trump and Mitch McConnell would insist on filling any SCOTUS vacancy this year so long as the two months or so necessary to vet and confirm a justice is still on the calendar.
• Did St. Joseph of Cupertino actually fly? Most certainly.....
  Readers of a certain age might remember the silly TV show The Flying Nun...religious brothers and sisters who take flight are nothing new. When we lived in Wiltshire in England we learned the delightful story from the Middle Ages about Eilmer, a Benedictine monk of Malmesbury Abbey who, in the eleventh century, jumped off the tower of the abbey church with some home made wings. Like Icarus he plummeted. The story is related by a monastic historian, William of Malmesbury...
• St. Thérèse statue beheaded, church robbed and vandalized at Catholic parish in Utah...
  Vandals desecrated St. Therese of the Child Jesus Catholic Church in Midvale, Utah on Mon., Sept. 14, and Tues., Sept. 15. This is one of many statue and/or church desecrations throughout the United States this year.