Goldenballs, opening day, and drive time

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Happy Friday friends,

And a very happy feast of St. Nicholas to you all.

Nicholas is, of course, famous for other things, but I have always found it most curious that his is listed as patron saint of pawnbrokers — the international symbol of which is three gold balls, harkening back to the purses of gold he is meant to have deposited down a family chimney to save the resident daughters from a future of… keeping low company.

It’s always struck me as an odd connection, given that pawnbrokers are universally seedy establishments, places of last resort where the desperate hock their last dear treasures for a few coins to try to make it to the end of the week or month.

Patron saint of pawnbroker customers I could understand, but of the industry itself? Surely not. It turns out that the saintly patronage is somewhat inherited — not to say stolen. Nicholas was, for the above-mentioned chimney-related charitable shenanigans, originally designated the patron of montes pietatius, charitable institutions of the middle ages.

Usually run by friars, these were non-profit ventures from which the poor could secure money lent a no or ultra-low interest, secured against some token deposit, and their primary function was to save people from resorting to predatory money lending.

Sadly, the practice was evolved by the Lombards into a dodge around the Church’s prohibition on usury — while lending money at interest was banned as both sinful and a canonical crime, taking security on a loan was not. Nor were structured sale-and-repurchase agreements, where the interest was essentially factored into an inflated repurchase price.

And from this the modern industry of robbing widows of their wedding rings for the price of a meal was born, while claiming the patronage of St. Nicholas, whom I would venture to guess probably ain’t much partial to it, all things considered.

Anyway, here’s the news.

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The News

Two senior archbishops have called for a Vatican investigation into whether the Australian Catholic University is upholding its Catholic identity.

Archbishops Anthony Fisher of Sydney and Peter Comensoli of Melbourne backed the plan in a letter sent by Fisher this week to the prefect of the Dicastery for Culture and Education, Cardinal José Tolentino de Mendonça.

Friends in the dicastery passed The Pillar a copy of the letter in which Archbishop Fisher said he and Comensoli backed “the appointment of a Vatican investigation into the allegations made against the university, and regarding its identity and mission.”

“The shaken confidence in the leadership of the university amongst many of its stakeholders should surely occasion some serious soul-searching by the university regarding its identity and mission,” he wrote.

The letter is the latest development in a conflict at ACU over the controversial reappointment of its vice-chancellor, and a standoff between university leadership and Church leaders over its Catholic identity.

That dispute has encompassed the appointment of a dean of law with controversial views on abortion, and an apology to students after a mass walkout during a commencement speech given by a former union leader who criticized abortion, IVF, and same-sex marriage.

You can read all about the history of the clash here, and then get the full and latest details of the archbishop’s letter here.

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Salt Lake City’s bishop has instructed pastors that children baptized above the age of reason should not receive the other sacraments of initiation at the time of their baptism.

The policy seems clearly at odds with canonical norms on the subject. But Salt Lake’s Bishop Oscar Solis told priests he is enacting only a “temporary” moratorium on observing the Church’s universal law on sacramental initiation, while a “faith formation plan” is developed for the diocese.

“At no point should all three sacraments of initiation be administered together at the Easter Vigil or any other time,” the bishop directed priests.

“When deemed ready, they will enter a two-year preparation process for First Penance, followed by First Communion. Once the child has received their First Communion and participated in a sustained and comprehensive program of religious education with regular participation in the Sunday Mass, they may join the preparation for Confirmation,” Solis wrote.

Quite apart from canonical issues, the Salt Lake policy raises a very obvious question: if children above the age of reason are deemed ready to receive baptism but not the other sacraments at the same time, what kind of glaring deficiencies exist in the baptismal preparation program?

If a child needs, as the diocese says, “time for greater comprehension and consent” to receive the Eucharist and the sacrament of penance, one has to wonder what their level of comprehension is to receive their baptism, since the sacraments together are… well… kind of the fundamentals of the faith.

Read the whole thing.

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Pillar reader Cardinal Christophe Pierre, apostolic nuncio to the U.S., is expected to meet with Pope Francis this week, ahead of Saturday’s Vatican consistory for the creation of new cardinals.

While Pierre will doubtless be talking with the pope about the backlog of senior American episcopal appointments. But just as high on the list of jobs to fill will be the cardinal’s own — he turns 79 next month.

In an analysis this week, JD looked at the man who our friends around the Secretariat of State are quietly tipping as the frontrunner to be nuncio in Washington — Archbishop Giovanni d'Aniello, currently the pope’s man in Moscow.

As JD notes, the stars do seem to line up behind a move for d'Aniello, though obviously nothing is ever certain until it’s happened.

The archbishop, who visited with the pope last week, has put in nearly a full four years as nuncio to Russia at a time when Francis has leaned heavily on the diplomatic mission there during the war in Ukraine, and a tour in Moscow is traditionally followed up with a posting to a senior Western embassy.

As it happens, Washington isn’t just about to open up, but relations with Russia are the priority for the Vatican in dealing with the incoming Trump administration. Added to that, d'Aniello has some impressive personal pedigree, having been ordained a priest in the southern Italian Diocese of Aversa.

As JD unpacks in his analysis, that little diocese wields an unusually strong influence in the Vatican’s diplomatic corps — it’s really quite incredible. It doesn’t make D.C. a lock for d'Aniello, of course, but the argument is pretty compelling.

So do yourself a favor and read all about the nuncio who might be about to come in from the cold.

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Any day now, the High Court of England and Wales in London is expected to deliver a verdict in the lawsuit brought against the Secretariat of State by Raffaele Mincione, the investment manager at the center of the Vatican property scandal and trial.

Since before the Vatican City trial even got underway, Mincione has been suing for declaratory relief, a judgment that he acted in “good faith” in his dealings with the Vatican. In the meantime, he’s been convicted by the Vatican court of breaching city state financial rules and handed a five year prison sentence, which he is appealing.

The stakes in this lawsuit are ridiculously high for both sides: Mincione is effectively fighting for his freedom and fortune, and the Secretariat of State for its international credibility and, depending on what damages could be awarded, its solvency.

We’ve been tracking Mincione’s story more closely than anyone over the last five years, and I think no one has carried a fuller account of his version of events, or the Vatican’s.

For me, I’ve spent more of my life tracking the ins-and-outs of Mincione’s business dealings with the Vatican than I am comfortable admitting.

To date, I have yet to find a “smoking gun” showing he broke any of the contracts he signed with the Vatican, or did anything I could call “illegal” and back up with hard evidence. That said, “good faith” is a very different standard than "strictly legal” to prove in court.

I’d also have to note that Archbishop Edgar Peña Parra’s testimony to the UK court seems pretty pitch perfect for proving bad faith on the Vatican’s part in several instances, so this really could go either way.

We shall see. Read all about it here.

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What does it take for a Muslim imam to meet the pope? Probably something special, you’d assume — it’s a longshot for a once in a lifetime encounter. Unless you’re Marwan Gill, who is set to meet Francis for the third time.

Gill is the leader of the Ahmadiyya movement in Argentina, a Musilm community of around 12 to 15 million believers worldwide, who — because they believe in a Muslim messiah named Mirza Ghulam Ahmad — are considered heretical by mainstream Islam, and severely persecuted in many Muslim-majority countries.

So how does that guy become a fixture on the pope’s meeting schedule? Well, we spoke with him to find out.

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Just a reminder friends, we are having a 20% St. Nicholas’ Day festal sale on subscriptions to The Pillar!

If you subscribe to The Pillar today or tomorrow, we’ll give you 20% off your subscription tier, for as long as you stay with us. We need about 150 new (or returning) paid subscribers to hit our year-end targets, and our accountant is strangely insistent that we get there.

SALE! I LIKE SALES!

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Opening day

Notre Dame cathedral reopens this weekend in Paris, amid much fanfare. For that, and for its swift restoration after such a devastating fire, we can and should all be grateful.

The project has, of course, had its ups and downs — some truly horrendous ideas were put forward during the initial strategizing phase and, for the first time since the Revolution, there seemed a real chance that the informal mother church of Europe could be reduced to a mere secular space.

The extent to which the Church has kept hold of Notre Dame spiritually, if not legally (it is state property because laïcité or something), was underscored by the Archbishop of Paris Laurent Ulrich’s being able to bar the doors to Emmanual Macron, who wanted to grandstand inside and take a political victory lap for clearing the way for the restorations.

Petit Manu will instead give his speech outside, prior to a Mass of dedication for Notre Dame’s new altar and the reinstallation of the cathedral’s treasured relics.

Given the chaotic state of French politics, the fall of his government in Parliament, and the real chance his own position could be threatened, “Jupiter,” as the imperious president is called in the French papers, will feel the snub keenly — as apparently he did with Pope Francis’ decision not to attend, but instead announce a trip to the French island of Corsica for the following week.

The stated reason for Francis declining to come is the consistory in Rome happening this weekend for the creation of a new batch of cardinals, though I understand the Vatican had the date for Notre Dame’s reopening well before the consistory was announced.

I confess I was sorry to hear the pope wouldn’t be attending. Apart from the dumpster fire of domestic French affairs (plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose), the wider European political map is a mess. It would have been an opportunity for the pope to show himself as the real center of gravity, both of the event itself and among the relative dwarves of EU leadership.

This sense of an opportunity missed was only compounded by the news that Donald Trump is planning to attend, though it is not clear to me if this is at his own invitation, the archbishop’s, or that of the French state.

Francis, as much or more than any recent pope, has positioned himself close to the heart of global affairs, dispatching personal peace envoys and entertaining world leaders in audience.

While I am sure he has his own reasons for skipping Paris — I’d do it just to avoid a Paul McCartney concert, though it’s been suggested to me it was more about the physical demands of the day than anything else — I would have found it interesting and enjoyable to watch the Bishop of Rome comfortably upstage the assembled secular heads of state and lead the watching world in prayer.

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Drive time

One of the many ways in which I fail to make the cut as a proper red-blooded American Dad is my relationship to cars.

I don’t understand them, really. I can admire a pretty one, and it’s a matter of legal record that I do enjoy driving at speed. But, if I’m honest, I know nothing about how they work.

Growing up in Britain, I never got into cars. As a young man in Greater London with a fondness for pubs, public transportation served my needs. And by the time I was living in the city proper, insurance and parking were prohibitively expensive, so I bought my first car and acquired my first driver’s license (in that order) when we relocated to Washington for grad school when I was 30 years old.

Getting the car was easy. As it turned out, so too was getting the license.

I had a U.K. “provisional licence,” of course — I’d had one since I first came of age, they function as your ID if you want to buy beer and cigarettes, which I did. But you basically mail off for one with a picture of yourself and a few cereal box tops, no actual driving is involved in the process.

Anyway, when the 30-year-old me arrived in America, I went to the nearest DMV and sat the written test, in which the answer to seemingly every question was “zero alcoholic drinks.” I then presented my completed exam at the appropriate desk, where I was told I would need to take a driving test.

“No,” I replied with the offhand confidence with which an English public school trains you to address foreign state functionaries. “I am just converting my out of state license — here it is,” I said, sliding my English learner’s permit across the desk.

There then followed a brief back and forth in which the clerk noted that (i) it was from a place she didn’t recognize (I helpfully clarified the UK is “a different country, like Canada only better”) and (ii) that it clearly said “PROVISIONAL LICENSE” across the top, which I assured her was irrelevant to my needs.

Luckily her supervisor walked by at that exact moment and asked what the issue was. She brought him up to speed and he took over. Scrutinizing the card he looked up at me and asked my age, clearly indicated on the license, but which I confirmed to spare him doing the math.

“You’re 30 years old and you only have a provisional driver’s license?” he asked with naked incredulity. “Yes — this is the problem we’re having,” I said. “I am from England and they do things very weirdly over there, but this is my license.”

The guy studied me, balancing the absurdity of what I’d just said versus his inability to fathom a grown man who couldn’t drive, while visibly weighing my calm self-assurance against his own desire not to be thought unsophisticated in the ways of the wider world.

“It’s fine, I’ll approve it,” he said to my clerk. God bless the DMV.

I say all this to underline that I came to cars comparably late in life and without even the most basic formal training in their ways — and my lack of understanding renders me both anxious and resentful of them.

My grasp of automotive mechanics is about as firm as my German language skills: I can say one sentence with total authority (“Gehen Sie geradeaus und nehmen Sie die erste Straße links,” and “I’m pretty sure it’s the alternator,” if you’re interested) and I’m fortunate that in both cases I’ve lucked into situations where I could correctly deploy them, to the shock of the people with me.

If I ever suffered a true flat tire on the highway, I’d probably be able to figure out how to change it, but I’d be white-knuckling it.

So it was with some trepidation that I loaded the car for the trip to my parents’ house last week for Thanksgiving. For whatever reason, this journey is annually accompanied by car trouble: slow leaks, battery failure, seized brake calipers, it’s always something. Though mercifully it has always been over the actual weekend, after our arrival, and not on the highway amidst holiday traffic.

Imagine then, if you will, the icy hand that gripped my entrails last Wednesday as I felt the car miss a gear somewhere on Route 17 and saw the engine warning light begin to flash.

I willed the bastard contraption on to the nearest exit ramp and pulled off to the side of the small road, igniting the hazard lights — an act which in Maryland signals “my car is broken, go around,” but in New Jersey seems to mean “honk and shout obscenities at me.”

Thankfully, it restarted after a few tries and, provided I drove it as though I had an ill-tempered gorilla asleep in the back, it got us home safe on Sunday and has behaved itself since.

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Of course, now the question is what to do about it.

If, as Robin Williams once observed, cocaine is God’s way of telling you that you make too much money, owning a Kia Sorento is His way of reminding you that you don’t make nearly enough of it.

Having already had the thing serviced several times this year, at mounting expense, I can scarce afford to find out what’s wrong with it now, still less fix it or buy a new (used) car.

My wife has become enamoured of the notion of “leasing” a car, on the not unreasonable grounds that it would cost less a year than our average annual repair bill at this point. But amongst the classes of people I consider most suspect are car dealers, money lenders, and landlords, so getting into bed with all three at once is about as appealing as voluntary indentured servitude; I’d as soon borrow money from the mob, at least they’re upfront about their terms.

I don’t know.

We’re off to London to spend Christmas with the inlaws in a week or so, though. So, provided nothing more goes wrong between now and then, I will probably just ignore the issue and hope it goes away.

That’s what a red-blooded American Dad is supposed to do. Right?

See you next week,

Ed. Condon
Editor
The Pillar

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