Weekly Summary: 5/30/26
The week in review, from the perspective of a veteran Catholic journalist
Don’t have time to read everything I post? I understand; it can be a lot.
If you can wait until the weekend, just sign up for this Weekly Summary, take a look at what I’ve written, and settle down with your favorite items.
This week, for example:
Articles
Pope Leo’s encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, was the big news this week, of course. It accounted for most of my writing.
First, on the day the document appeared, I did a News Analysis piece for CWN, summarizing what I saw as the key themes in the encyclical.
The next day I was back with a closer look at one theme that’s particularly interesting to me: the Pope’s remark that the just-war tradition is “outdated.” I disagree.
Another day, another article: this time delving at greater length into what I thought were the strongest and weakest points in the encyclical. (The bulk of this article was behind a paywall; it’s now freely available to all readers.)
Finally, after a week of reading and writing and talking about the encyclical, Leila and I summed up the arguments, and our responses, in this week’s Home Front podcast. (Don’t miss the valuable links in our Show Notes!)
Notes
Quick news notes: At his Wednesday public audience Pope Leo called upon priests to respect “the authentic and living Catholic tradition” in the liturgy. That was the day’s good news. Less good: Swiss bishops issued a statement that accepted the notion of “gender identity.”
And then several reference to other takes on Magnifica Humanitas:
Yuhal Levin didn’t think Pope Leo went far enough in his reference to the Tower of Babel, and argued that the greatest threat behind the development of AI is the real threat of idolatry.
Ross Douthat’s reaction to the encyclical touched a nerve with me, especially when he called attention to the tendency of Vatican statements to “assume a benign social-democratic worth authority that conspicuously doesn’t exist.”
One hold commentator decided to write his own version of “the encyclical that needed to be written,” and his effort was actually quite thought-provoking, especially in comparison with the document we had just received.
Father Robert Sirico also had a good insight on Magnifca Humanitas— as well as a pithy comment on the presumptious approach of AI advocates.
Finally, some frightening news about how much debt Americans are carrying on their credit-card accounts. Between that and the federal government debt, we’re headed for a stern reckoning.
