I was watching the Pope make the stations of the cross at the Colosseum on EWTN today, and I started noticing that the Stations seemed to be, well, different. And so they were.
And I guess this is the way they're going to be from now on, though I can't find any news tonight that tells me whether this change is going to be normative. Will it really be time for those venerable Stations to come down from the walls of tens of thousands of parish churches all over the world? I don't know.
Yes, I suppose it's good to align this little devotion more closely with the Gospels. But was there nothing else that needed attention in Rome? No cardinals who needed disciplining? No "Catholic" politicians who have built their careers on ignoring Church teaching while receiving their photo-op Eucharist every Easter?
I'm just bitterly tired of seeing every Catholic tradition I was taught as a child tinkered with.
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
