Ever since the Second Vatican Council spoke of the universal call to holiness, there has been a move to recognize more lay men and women as saints as models of sanctity for lay Catholics.
The stunning news that a soon-to-be-saint was excommunicated for urging the church to take action against a sex offender is a reminder of the virulence of the crimes of clerical abuse.
St. Vianney spent upwards of 12 to 13 hours a day in the confessional. I once mentioned that in a lecture in a large parish and one young man immediately raised his hand and said, “Why, what did he do?”
Pope Benedict XVI is often considered to favor a “hermeneutics of continuity” in his interpretation of Vatican II, and careless commentators have used that term to describe his view. Instead, he calls it the “hermeneutics of reform.”
Berlusconi’s election campaign promised a severe clampdown on “Roma, clandestine immigrants and criminals”—it was one of the main reasons for his election.