What is Bishop Strickland's endgame?

In an article by NCR reporter Brian Fraga, Bishop Strickland says he will not resign if pope asks. What comes next? | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org)

"...Bishop Joseph Strickland, who has been subject to a Vatican investigation over his leadership style and right-wing comments on social media, has vowed in recent days not to resign or "voluntarily abandon" his diocese, even if Pope Francis asks him to do so."

From the article:

Driving vacations

Last week, My wife and I took a vacation.  It's good to get out and see and experience other parts of the world.

World Youth Day in Lisbon

 Although this Commonweal article by Austen Ivereign is behind a pay wall for those non-subscribers who have exhausted their monthly five article limit, it is worth the while to read it sometime. I will quote extensively from the sections that I think are most important.

A Church with Room for Everyone

A Pandora's Box?

In the comments section on another thread (which was unrelated to this subject), Jim and I had discussed a booklet which was titled "The Synodal Process is a Pandora's Box- 100 questions and answers". Today Ann pointed out that Michael Sean Winters had an article about it on The NCR site. There had also been another article on NCR about it on Monday by Christopher White. So I decided to do a post on it.

To catch everyone up on what happened, a copy of this little book showed up in my husband's mailbox in the parish office. It also showed up in Jim's parish mailbox. I'm guessing that it probably was mailed to every parish office and chancery in the USA, and maybe some other places as well.  It isn't that hard to put together a list of the active clergy, including deacons. priests, and bishops, in the USA. And there appears to be a lot of money behind the effort of publishing and distributing the book.

Here are some excerpts from the Christopher White article, Behind the synod opposition: Far-right groups, political activists and Cardinal Burke | National Catholic Reporter (ncronline.org:

Homes of the Future

It would be nice if we could figure out how to build homes that were more affordable, more resistant to earthquakes, hurricanes, and fire, and more environmentally friendly.  It turns out that this is already happening, with the aid of 3D printing technology.  Who knew that they could build a house with a 3D printer!

In this article, 3D printed houses are being built in an impoverished area in Mexico:  3D printed housing is affordable, practical, and can withstand earthquakes (techwireasia.com)

An Unusual Prayer Ministry

The other day I ran across an interesting podcast about a Dominican priest, Father Nathan Castle, OP, and his prayer ministry to souls who died in very traumatic circumstances, and are in a sense, "stuck". We would think of it as it purgatory or perhaps limbo.

The place where I listened to the podcast was Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World.  I don't listen to Jimmy Akin's podcasts a lot, because they do run on quite long. But they are interesting. I listen to them when I am doing some quite boring task, such as cleaning out cupboards. This is the episode I was listening to: Helping Stuck Souls! (Purgatory, Fr. Nathan Castle, OP) - Jimmy Akin's Mysterious World - YouTube

This is more of a short "Cliff Notes" version of Father Nathan's ministry: The Night Shift - YouTube

He has been a priest in the Dominican order for about 37 years.  More than 20 years ago, he started having dreams of short clips of traumatic events which he had never personally experienced. I will briefly summarize what he does, along with his prayer partners.

 

The Cleveland Commonweal Local Community has not met since the beginning of the pandemic. For three years before, the community consisted of about ten individuals who have come to more than one meeting, about another ten who came only once, and another ten who never came to a meeting at all.  Every time I asked people who were not among the first ten, they still wanted to remain on the mailing list.  In our last year we usually had about six people at each meeting (not always the same six). 

I have not heard anything from any of the members or from Commonweal about CLCs for more than a year.  Ellen Koneck, their original staff member for CLCs left Commonweal for about a three year period and is now back with the title of Executive Director.  Does she have a mandate to renew CLCs? 

The link is to a draft post which I intend to send to the thirty people on the mailing list, and also to several people at Commonweal.  With my three years of experience in Cleveland and now going on six years of experience in this blog, I hope to challenge everyone to rethink the idea.

Reinventing Commonweal Local Communities