Carl E. Olson's Blog, page 70

In Praise of the (practically defunct) Short Mystery Story

In Praise of the (practically defunct) Short Mystery Story | T. M. Doran | IPNovels.com

Ever since Terrapin was published and a Cole Porter Palmer short mystery story was included as an appendix (“The Deadly Dart Mystery”), Ignatius has been offering an annual CPP mystery story. In 2012: “A Legendary Mystery”. In 2013: “The Yellow Tavern Mystery”. And in 2014: “The Linden Murder Case Mystery”. Ignatius Press’ John Herreid critiques the drafts, creates the art, and produces the story.

My new short mystery story: “The Linden Murder Case Mystery”, a locked room mystery that takes place in Ann Arbor, Michigan, is connected to the 1930s S.S. Van Dine mystery stories, and to a publisher’s note in a first edition of one of his novels. Authors don’t use the words “Mystery” and “Case” in the same title; it’s one or the other. You’ll have to read the story to learn why both appear in this title.

This annual event prompts me to offer these thoughts on the short mystery story. In the second half of the 19th century and the first half on the 20th century, the short mystery story—typically taut, tense, terse—was a staple of fiction, and not just detective fiction. Thousands upon thousands were devoted fans. In 1944, the literary critic, Edmund Wilson, who loathed mystery stories, grudgingly admitted that the genre was wildly popular: “I have recently been sampling the various types of popular merchandise. I have decided that I ought to take a look at some specimens of this kind of fiction, which has grown so tremendously popular and which is now being produced on such a scale that the book departments of magazines have had to employ special editors to cope with it.”

Arthur Conan Doyle was the most famous practitioner, with G.K. Chesterton not far behind in his day. Other mystery writers who produced sparkling short mystery stories include Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, John Dickson Carr, Rex Stout, and Ellery Queen (Frederic Dannay and Manfred Lee). Though the puzzle was an important ingredient, vivid investigators like Sherlock Holmes, Fr. Brown, Hercule Poirot, Lord Peter Wimsey, Nero Wolfe, and Ellery Queen populated, enlivened, and often edified these short stories.

Short mystery stories are usually cerebral puzzles, with characters less well defined, except for the detective, who is usually characterized in the author’s novels. Some of these stories are memorable as well as enjoyable reads: G.K. Chesterton’s “The Invisible Man”, Ellery Queen’s “The Adventure of The Mad Tea Party”, and Agatha Christie’s “The Coming of Mr. Quin” and “Harlequin’s Lane”, these latter stories from a lesser known series of—I guess you could call them—metaphysical mysteries.

While not a few of these short stories are cartoonish, readers don’t expect high literature from this sub-genre but entertainment of the sort we experience in assembling a challenging puzzle, or working out a riddle, or viewing a spectacular magic trick, or delineating a moral truth that turns conventional thinking upside down (a specialty of Chesterton’s).

Continue reading at www.IPNovels.com.

Ezekiel in Iowa

Ezekiel in Iowa | Br. Gabriel Torretta, O.P. | CWR

The tone of Marilynne Robinson’s new novel, Lila, is a haunting mixture of elegy and praise, as the old life dies and a new one comes to birth

Thou wast cast out in the open field… in the day that thou wast born. And when I passed by thee, and saw thee weltering in thy blood, I said unto thee, Though thou art in thy blood, live (Ezekiel 16:4-6). Such is the drama of the God who gives his life to sinful men and women, that he comes to us as we wander in the welter and waste of our own unaccountable sorrows, and he tells us: Live.

Ezekiel’s cryptic prophecy resounds through Marilynne Robinson’s new novel Lila like a funeral bell, tolling in slow, measured peals the tragedy and glory of human existence: that we must pass through death to get to life. Ezekiel rings its changes through the pages of Robinson’s work, rather like Job does through Terrence Malick’s Tree of Life. Just as Malick explores how God’s answer from the whirlwind—Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?—is only the beginning of the divine transformation of suffering and not its end, so Robinson relentlessly pursues the irreducible tragedy of Ezekiel—why was the child cast out? what of those children who are never raised up?—through the twisting pathways by which grace finds its way to the human heart.

Lila is Robinson’s third visit to the 1950s small-town Iowa milieu she first introduced in Gilead (2004), a stunning novel told from the perspective of the Abrahamic John Ames, a dying Congregationalist pastor who married and had a son in his late sixties, as he writes a final journal-cum-testament to the child whose life he is about to leave. Home (2008) narrates the same events from different perspectives, using the parable of the prodigal son as a leitmotif for exploring the terrible trial of forgiveness.

In the two previous novels, Ames’ wife Lila is hidden in plain sight, appearing overtly or implicitly on almost every page of Gilead and frequently being a source of succor and rest in Home, yet remaining enigmatically silent throughout.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Catholic Difference

A priest hears the confession of a pilgrim April 28th before a Mass of thanksgiving for the canonizations of Sts. John XXIII and John Paul II in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

The Catholic Difference | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ | CWR

We just happen to be Catholics, right? Does it make any difference what we are? Does being Catholic really, ultimately, mean much of anything?

“So the power of deception, which is over others’ minds (symbolized by the invisibility given by the Ring), is an essential component to the power over others’ bodies and lives and actions. Machiavelli and Hitler both understood that principle, that’s why they knew that propaganda was an essential part of war. The evil empire that controls modern world media knows that too, though its aim is not political conquest (like Machiavelli) or military conquest (like Hitler) but the far more apocalyptic spiritual and religious conquest of conscience, of soul.”

— Peter Kreeft, The Philosophy of Tolkien (Ignatius 2005), 181.

I.

We live in a world of “just-happens-to-be.” That is, this man just happens to be a Mormon. That woman with the veil happens to be a Muslim. The man next door is a Baptist, and my boss says that he just happens to be an atheist. That young man is Chinese; the taxi-driver is from Ethiopia. My nurse is Russian, my doctor Irish, and my favorite restaurant just happens to be Italian. The fullback is black, the CEO is Japanese, and the man who mows my yard just happens to be from El Salvador.
And we just happen to be Catholics, right? Does it make any difference what we are? We are, after all, supposed to get along together, no matter what we hold. No “hate language” is allowed. Everyone loves peace. We are not to bother anyone in his “beliefs”. We are to tolerate most everything.

Again, do these varied identities make any difference? Or, perhaps, do they make all the difference in the world? The Shiites and the Sunnis seem constantly to fight over what appears to most of us to be quite insignificant issues. Yet to them they make a difference; they are life and death issues. The number of Protestant sects is given as anywhere from 20,000 or 30,000. They all differ from the Catholics, and, on some point or other of doctrine or practice, from each other. Hindus and Confucians just happen to differ, as do Communists and Capitalists. Some people call this situation “multiculturalism” and claim that it is a good thing. Others call it a mess, an endless confusion about fundamental issues of human living. One Supreme Court justice tells us that everyone has a right to his own view of the cosmos, whatever it may be.

Justice Ginsburg says that women should “choose” their own “destiny” But if we choose, it is not a destiny. If it is a destiny, we do not choose. Philosophers tell us that these positions just happen to constitute relativism.

While there was much anti-Catholicism in early American history, Catholics were said to have reached the mainstream in the latter part of the 20th century. That is, they did not seem to be different enough from anyone else to cause a stir. But, more recently, Catholics see themselves being singled out; they are becoming strangers in their own land. They are separated out because of a radical cultural change that they did not always notice. This separating out is not so much because of any specific doctrinal issue peculiar to Catholics but because of issues of reason and natural law concerning human life and family, the very pillars of civilization. Ironically, the attack on Catholics is an attack on reason. They are not persecuted because of their faith but because of their reason. The reason for this is that, in principle, faith itself is directed to reason at its best.

Ironically, Catholics today are different not because of any dispute about the Incarnation or the Trinity, as was the case in the early Church, but because of reason and its validity. Statistically, not a few people who say they are Catholic now accept the stances concerning marriage, abortion, contraception, single-sex marriage, and euthanasia that the culture not only embraces but more and more enforces as necessary to be present as participating members of the political order. These latter people still claim to be “Catholic”, even though they reject the rational grounds of faith. The Church itself excommunicates few (if any) on any grounds. These differences are not those of being unable or not wanting at times to practice the faith. Rather, they are statements about what the Church “ought” to hold but does not and never did. There is an implicit claim that the Church is “wrong”. But if the Church is wrong, it is not the Church and there is really no reason to stay in it on that hypothesis.

II.

So what is the Catholic difference? Do we “just-happen-to-be-Catholics” as we might happen to be born in Philadelphia because our mother was there at the time? Or do what we hold and how we live because of what we hold make a difference in our very purpose for existing in this world?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Jesus Christ is the New and Everlasting Temple

Pope Francis celebrates the Eucharist during Mass at the Basilica of St. John Lateran in Rome April 7, 2013. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

A Scriptural Reflection on the Readings for Sunday, November 9, 2014 | Feast of the Dedication of the Lateran Basilica in Rome | Carl E. Olson

Readings:
• Ez 47:1-2, 8-9, 12
• Ps 46:2-3, 5-6, 8-9
• 1 Cor 3:9c-11, 16-17
• Jn 2:13-22

Some thousand years before the time of Christ the great Temple of Solomon was built. Previously, the tribes of Israel had worshipped God in sanctuaries housing the ark of the covenant. King David had desired to build a permanent house of God for the ark. But that work was accomplished by his son, Solomon, equally famous for his wisdom—and his eventual corruption due to the pursuit of power and wealth.

In the Old Testament the temple is often referred to as “the house of the Lord”. Sometimes it is called “Zion,” as in today’s Psalm (Ps. 46), a term that also referred to the city of Jerusalem, which in turn represented the people of God. The temple was a barometer of sorts for the health of the covenantal relationship between God and the people. Many of the prophets warned that a failure to uphold the Law and live the covenant would result in the destruction of the temple.

The prophet Jeremiah, for example, warned that having the temple couldn’t protect the people from the consequences of their sins: “Do not trust in these deceptive words: 'This is the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD, the temple of the LORD’.” (Jer. 7).

In 587 B.C., the temple was finally destroyed by King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, marking the start of The Exile. During that time, in the 25th year of exile, the prophet Ezekiel had a vision of a new temple (Ezek. 40-48). The description of the temple, part of it heard in today’s first reading, hearkened back in various ways to the first chapters of Genesis (cf., Gen. 2:10-14), including references to pure water, creatures in abundance, and unfading trees producing continuous fresh fruit. This heavenly temple, it was commonly believed, would descend from heaven and God would then dwell in the midst of mankind.

Following the exile, the temple was rebuilt, then damaged, and rebuilt again. Finally, not long before the birth of Christ, Herod built an expansive, glorious temple. It was there that Jesus was presented by Mary and Joseph and blessed by Simeon (Lk 2:22-35) and where he, as a youth, spent time talking to the teachers of the Law (Lk 2:43-50). It was also the setting for the scene described in today’s Gospel—the cleansing of the temple and Jesus’ shocking prophecy: “Destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up.”

Was Jesus, in cleansing the temple, attacking the temple itself? No. And did Jesus, in making his remark, saying he would destroy the temple? No. But, paradoxically, the love of the Son for his Father and his Father’s house did point toward the demise of the temple. “This is a prophecy of the Cross,” wrote Joseph Ratzinger in The Spirit of the Liturgy, “he shows that the destruction of his earthly body will be at the same time the end of the Temple.”

Why? Because a new and everlasting Temple was established by the death and Resurrection of the Son of God. “With his Resurrection the new Temple will begin: the living body of Jesus Christ, which will now stand in the sight of God and be the place of all worship. Into this body he incorporates men.”

The new Temple of God did, in fact, come down from heaven. It dwelt among man (Jn. 1:14). “It” is a man: “Christ is the true temple of God, ‘the place where his glory dwells’; by the grace of God, Christians also become temples of the Holy Spirit, living stones out of which the Church is built” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1197). Through baptism we become joined to the one Body of Christ, and that Body, the Church, is the “one temple of the Holy Spirit” (CCC, 776).

“Come! behold the deeds of the LORD,” wrote the Psalmist, “the astounding things he has wrought on earth.” Indeed, behold Jesus the Christ, the true and astounding temple of God, and worship him in spirit and in truth."

(This "Opening the World" column originally appeared in the November 9, 2008, edition of Our Sunday Visitor newspaper.)

Helen Hull Hitchcock: A Light in the Darkness

Helen Hull Hitchcock (August 19, 1939 - October 20, 2014)

Helen Hull Hitchcock: A Light in the Darkness | Sherry Tyree | CWR

I met the founder of Women for Faith & Family thirty years ago, and my life was changed forever

Editor's note: On October 20th, Helen Hull Hitchcock, founding director of Women for Faith and Family and editor of Adoremus Bulletin (and a contributor to CWR), died in St. Louis after a short and sudden illness. She was 75 years old. Helen was the wife of James Hitchcock, Catholic author and emeritus professor of history at Saint Louis University, and mother of four daughters and grandmother of six grandchildren. CWR asked Sherry Tyree, longtime friend of the Hitchcocks and a fellow worker at Women for Faith and Family, to write about Helen's life, work, and witness.

Autumn, 1984.

The phone rang.

It was a Dr. Anne Bannon—I didn’t know her—who had read my recent letter to the editor in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Dr. Bannon said a new Catholic women’s group was springing up in St. Louis and she thought I’d like to be part of it. Here’s the meeting date—could I come?

I couldn’t—thank goodness. That was that.

I figured these women were probably a bunch of nuts. I’d worked in the Catholic end of the civil rights movement in the 60s and had had enough of the kind of fringe element that seems attracted to WHATEVER’S HAPPENING NOW—loosely-knit folks who glom on to a current worthy cause and then excuse their own questionable behavior because, after all, their hearts are in the right place.

That was the 60s; this was the 80s. Liberalism, which held the moral high ground back in the day, had become cocky, then nasty, and traditional religion, which had once been vital to the civil rights cause, was now shown the door. In the 80s, religion was the enemy of liberalism, most especially Roman Catholicism.

A month later—uh, oh—Dr. Bannon phoned again with the date of the next meeting. In a weak moment, I said I’d attend.

So my husband dropped me off, and I walked into a room full of women who seemed, well, perfectly normal.

Like me, they were concerned about this neo-anti-Catholicism that had emerged, and were determined to do something about it. I felt very much at home.

All too soon—midnight!—time to leave. Anne Connell offered to drive me.

My husband Donald was pacing the floor: just as I had forgotten the time, he had forgotten where he had dropped me off! Where had I been? A half-hour more and he was ready to phone the police….

I told him something important had happened that night, something good. It was much the way a woman feels when she knows she is pregnant and no one else yet knows.

And that’s how I met Helen Hull Hitchcock.

Back then, in ’84, radical feminism was in full flower, support for the killing of unborn children was confident, pervasive, and public—and anyone who disagreed was treated with derision and vilification.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Recovery of Human Nature

(Image: © blvdone; Fotolia.com)

The Recovery of Human Nature | James Kalb | CWR

A basic reason people today don’t accept nature as a guide is that they see it as essentially mindless

Like other living things, human beings have a distinct nature as beings of a particular kind. We have conditions we try to bring about, conditions that help us thrive, and characteristic ways of acting, responding to events, and dealing with others. All these points are obvious.

Nonetheless, if you mention human nature in public discussion today you’ll face resistance. People will say you’re engaging in stereotypical thinking that stands in the way of Hope and Change. They’ll want you to prove every detail of every assertion, no proof will be good enough, and your arguments won’t stick. The next time the issue comes up you’ll have to go through everything all over again.

That’s a problem for Catholics and others who are concerned with the realities of human life, including the reality of how we should live. People seem to think we can make those realities what we want, so views that treat them as stable and enduring make no sense. If you say that there are two sexes that naturally connect to each other, and we need to get the connection right so people can lead happy and productive lives, they’ll say you’re a narrow-minded bigot. The accusations will become all the louder if you add that man is a rational animal, and it is important how he understands his situation, so if he is married it is important for him to recognize the natural function of the institution and his role in it.

One result of this rejection of natural patterns of life is a radically libertarian understanding that makes connections between the sexes unstable and nonfunctional, and marriage a luxury good for the successful rather than a basic structural aid that can make anyone’s life better. A further result is a great many miserable people. We won’t be able to do much about those and other results of the current refusal to accept basic human realities until people once again recognize human nature as a guide for how to live.

But how will that happen? To answer the question we need to understand why the idea of human nature has been rejected and how an understanding of it that’s stable and detailed enough to be usable becomes established.

A basic reason people today don’t accept nature as a guide is that they see it as essentially mindless.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

New: "Remade for Happiness: Achieving Life's Purpose through Spiritual Transformation" by Abp. Fulton Sheen

Now available from Ignatius Press:

Remade for Happiness: Achieving Life's Purpose through Spiritual Transformation

by Archbishop Fulton Sheen

When asked, "What's wrong with the world?" G.K. Chesterton famously replied simply, "I am." We want to be happy and yet we often seem to be the source of our own unhappiness, as well as that of others. Even when that is not the case, our lives — as blessed as they may be — have their share of sadness and disappointment. How do we respond? Do we become cynical and try, at all costs, to get as much pleasure as we can? Or do we recognize we were made for more?

In this classic work, Fulton Sheen explains the secret of authentic happiness: being spiritually remade. A genuinely spiritual life, Sheen contends, consists in more than obeying a set of commands, reading the Bible, or even following the example of Jesus. Before all else, it consists in being recreated and incorporated into a new, higher kind of life—the supernatural life of grace — and in being brought into a new kind of spiritual relationship, as a child of God through Jesus Christ.

What does it mean to be a Christian? Christianity is not a system of ethics; it is a life. It is not good advice; it is divine adoption. Being a Christian does not consist in just being kind to the poor, going to church, singing hymns, or serving on parish committees, though it includes all of these. It is first and foremost a love relationship with Jesus Christ.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen was one of the most celebrated churchmen of the twentieth century. He wrote over sixty books, and his radio and television programs drew an audience of thirty million listeners. His many other books include Life Is Worth Living, The World's First Love, and Through the Year with Fulton Sheen.

Praise for Remade for Happiness:

"Remade for Happiness is a book that succeeds in universally drawing in all readers. There's nobody better than the Venerable Archbishop Sheen in communicating the most important element of life. If you want to have the light of happiness in this life and in the next, then you need to read this book!"
— Terry Barber, Author, How to Share Your Faith with Anyone

"Happiness is a fundamental desire in all of us. Yet, sadly, many people are unaware that in order to attain true happiness a person needs to have a right understanding of God, oneself, and the world. In this gem of a book, the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen helps us ponder these topics, and then instructs us in the necessary role that the Church, the sacraments, and the theological virtues play in helping us attain our ultimate desire—everlasting happiness! Remade for Happiness is classic Fulton Sheen!"
— Fr. Donald Calloway, M.I.C., Author, Marian Gems: Daily Wisdom on Our Lady

"'Look at your heart! It tells the story of why you were made.' These words by the great Archbishop Fulton Sheen, which sum up our experience of life, also capture the heart of this beautiful book. A must read."
— Chris Stefanick, Speaker, Author, and President of Real Life Catholic

• The original title of this book was Preface to Religion. This edition has a Foreword by Jennifer Fulwiler, but otherwise unchanged. 

Mary comes to life in photographic images

Ignatius Press announces release of a cinematographic meditation book on the life of the Blessed Mother

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 4, 2014 – MARY of NAZARETH, the epic motion picture on the life of the Blessed Mother from her childhood through the Resurrection of Jesus that was seen by some 200,000 people on 552 screenings in more than 270 cities across North America as part of Ignatius Press’ theatrical and parish screening program, now has a companion volume: Mary of Nazareth: The Life of Our Lady in Pictures.

With inspiring commentary and meditations authored by Marian priest, Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, this full-color companion to the popular film provides further inspiration and insight about the mysterious life of love, faith and sacrifice of the woman God chose to be the Mother of the Savior of mankind, Mary of Nazareth. 

The Life of Our Lady in Pictures features over 65 lovely photos from the movie that tell the moving story of the life of the Blessed Virgin Mary, from childhood through the Resurrection of her Son, Jesus Christ.

Fr. Calloway, a Marian scholar well-known for his extensive writings on Our Lady, presents in this volume short but profound insights and meditations about Mary, her unique life, her deep relationship with Jesus Christ, her special role in the story of salvation and her importance to all Christians.

“Mary of Nazareth is an absolute theological and Mariological masterpiece! The most stunning portrayal of the Virgin Mary on film,” says Calloway, considered one of the foremost experts on the life of Mary. “It will make you want to love her more than ever.”

To view a sneak peek FLIPBOOK of the film, endorsements from prominent Catholics and much more information on the movie that inspired the book, please visit www.MaryFilm.com.

For more information, or to schedule an interview with author and Marian expert Fr. Donald Calloway, MIC, or AlissaJung, who plays Mary and who will be in the UNITED STATES for a book and DVD tour Nov. 14-19, please contact Kevin Wandra (404-788-1276 or KWandra@CarmelCommunications.com).

True, Virginal Wife of Joseph

The Holy Family, by Juan Simon Gutierrez (1643-1718).

True, Virginal Wife of Joseph | Jonathan Fleischmann | Homiletic & Pastoral Review

Recently, a holy, married couple made the following claim regarding the central place of sexual intercourse in sacramental marriage, expressed as a personal insight, gained over the course of more than 50 years of sacramental marriage:

Gradually, we came to see that the only feature that distinguishes our sacramental relationship from that of any other good, Christ-centered relationship is sexual intimacy, and that marriage is a sexual sacrament with its fullest expression in sexual intercourse.1

As the husband of a beautiful wife, and father of five (young) children myself—though with only about a fifth of their years of experience—I can certainly agree on one level with the married couple cited above regarding the centrality of both physical and spiritual intimacy in sacramental marriage. Indeed, unless we embrace Cartesian dualism, physical and spiritual intimacy for two human persons cannot exist in isolation of each other (on one level). However, if one maintains that the only feature distinguishing sacramental marriage from “any other good, Christ-centered relationship”, viz., the defining characteristic of sacramental marriage, is sexual intimacy, then one cannot maintain, with Pope St. John Paul II, that Joseph was the true, virginal husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Indeed, if the married couple cited above were correct, then the appellation “true, virginal husband” would be a contradiction in terms.

What, then, is the origin and paradigm of the intimate union of two persons in sacramental marriage, if it cannot be reduced to sexual intimacy (however beautiful and important such sexual intimacy is)? What, indeed, is the origin and paradigm of the sexual differentiation of male and female in human persons at all, upon which sexual intimacy is, of course, fundamentally based? Here, as in everything, we must turn our eyes toward God, the Most Holy Trinity, and try to see things from his point of view, rather than from our point of view. First and foremost, in the words of Fr. Peter Damian Fehlner:

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

Is Pope Francis an Evangelical, Charismatic Catholic?

Pope Francis arrives for an encounter with more than 50,000 Catholic charismatics at the Olympic Stadium in Rome June 1, 2014. (CNS photo/Paul Haring)

Is Pope Francis an Evangelical, Charismatic Catholic? | Fr. Dwight Longenecker | CWR

Experts in Evangelical Christianity and the Charismatic Movement discuss the roots and focus of the Holy Father's ecumenical dialogue and interaction

Labels are most often used not only to define a person, but to deny the person. Once we slap a label on them it is easy to limit them to that label. That’s why I used to tease people by describing myself as an “Evangelical, Charismatic, Catholic.”

I used the label to defy labels. I also used the description because I genuinely valued all three streams of Christian tradition. I wanted to affirm the Evangelical’s missionary zeal and love of the Scriptures, the Charismatic’s warmth and personal experience of the Holy Spirit, and the strong rootedness of the Catholic tradition.

Not long ago a priest friend admitted to to me that Pope Francis was “an enigma”. Now, a year and half into his papacy, after watching and listening to the pope carefully I’m convinced that he is, at heart, an Evangelical, Charismatic Catholic. Breaking out of common Catholic categories, Francis has reached out to Evangelicals and Charismatics both within the Catholic Church and beyond.

His friendship with bishop Tony Palmer is a good example. Before his untimely death, Palmer was a leader in a new church movement which weaves together the zealous missionary spirit of the Evangelicals, active use of the charismatic gifts, a love for liturgy, and the apostolic succession. Through Palmer, Pope Francis reached out to charismatic evangelist Kenneth Copeland, preached in a Pentecostal church in Rome and welcomed Evangelical leaders for a breakfast time visit.

To assess my hunch that Pope Francis is an Evangelical, Charismatic Catholic, I spoke to two Catholic leaders in the Church who are experts in Evangelical Christianity and the charismatic movement.

Catholic Charismatics

Dr. Ralph Martin is a well-known author, theologian, and teacher. He holds degrees in theology from Notre Dame, Princeton and a the Angelicum. He is associate professor of Evangelization at Sacred Heart Major Seminary in Detroit and is the director of Catholic Renewal Ministries. Ralph worked with Pope Francis in this year’s world meeting of charismatic Catholics in Rome. I asked Ralph for the inside story on Pope Francis and the charismatic movement.

Fr. Longenecker: Pope Francis seems open to the Renewal Movement in the Catholic Church. What do you think he sees as the movements strengths and weaknesses? By reaching out to charismatics is he simply trying to stem the tide of Catholics converting to the Pentecostal/Charismatic Protestant churches?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.