Weekly Summary 7/18/26

The week in review, from the perspective of a veteran Catholic journalist

As you’ll see, I post a lot of Notes in the course of a week. If you don’t have time to read everything I post, I understand.

If you can wait until the weekend, sign up for this Weekly Summary, take a look at what I’ve written, and settle down with your favorite items.

Also, at least for now, each Saturday afternoon I take down the paywall on Articles that I wrote during the week. So if you can wait— but I hope you can’t— you’ll find everything in this Weekly Summary. That temporary-payroll policy is an experiment; I can’t guarantee that it will last.

Articles

In case you missed it, I sent out a housekeeping message this week, asking readers to tell friends about this Substack. It’s never too late!

When did “toleration” attain the status of something like a cardinal virtue? The ability to tolerate pain is an asset, but what about the willingness to tolerate bad music, or bad manners, or bad morality? In a globalized society, we’ve learned to accept a great deal but other cultures and other beliefs. But that toleration comes at a cost.

Here’s one of my favorite examples of the communion of saints: St. Stephen, as he was dying prayed for his assailants— among them, the scourge of Christians named Saul. After his conversion St. Paul must have recognized the debt he owed to the martyr.

Negligence and cover-ups don’t solve problems. The US Catholic bishops learned that lesson— belatedly and very painfully— as it applies to sexual abuse. But they haven’t yet applied the lesson to scandals in Catholic education. This week on CatholicCulture I address this: the other scandal that our bishops aren’t addressing.

This week on the Home Front, Leila and I discussed that same issue. Then she brought up another lesson that hasn’t yet been learned: that political violence overwhelmingly comes from the Left, intended to intimidate conservatives. Needless to say, you won’t learn that lesson from the liberal media.

Notes

A New York Times piece was headlined: “The Population Bust Is coming Sooner Than Anyone Is Prepared For.” Maybe so, but some of us— including the author of the Times piece— saw it coming.

The population of Detroit’s metropolitan region has grown slightly in recent years. But the population of Catholics is plummeting: a decline so sharp that the future of the archdiocese may be in doubt. A case study in decline.

Leila and I have different complaints about “synodality.” I’m troubled by the fact that we don’t yet know what the word means. She’s more concerned that we do know what it is not. Synodality is not a mark of the Church.

Not wholly in jest, Peter Kwasniewski suggests a new translation of Traditionis Custodes (just the title, that is): “Prison-guards of Treachery.” It fits.

Watching a World Cup soccer game, I was reminded a maxim favored by my college tennis coach: Never change a winning game. That’s advice that applies to life in general, not just sports.

Cardinal Burke agrees that “we have to insist that this whole synodality business stop…”

Does the SSPX appeal of the excommunication decree have any chance of success? Ed Condon of The Pillar provides a realistic appraisal of the canonical issues, and finds the case unpromising.

In a new perspective on Magnifica Humanitas, Samuel Gregg questions the implicit economic assumptions. He finds that the encyclical, like many Vatican statements, takes for granted some liberal theories that the evidence does not support.