oktober 2026

I dag, 9. oktober, minnes Kirken den hellige John Henry Newman, saligkåret i 1910 og helligkåret 1. november 2025. Les en grundig biografi om ham på katolsk.no. I dag leste vi i matutin-bønnen følgende tekst av ham , tatt fra Apologia Pro Vita Sua, Chapter V: Position of My Mind since 1845, London 1878. Den åpner slik:

From the time that I became a Catholic, of course I have no further history of my religious opinions to narrate. In saying this, I do not mean to say that my mind has been idle, or that I have given up thinking on theological subjects; but that I have had no variations to record, and have had no anxiety of heart whatever. I have been in perfect peace and contentment; I never have had one doubt. I was not conscious to myself, on my conversion, of any change, intellectual or moral, wrought in my mind. I was not conscious of firmer faith in the fundamental truths of revelation or of more self-command; I had not more fervor; but it was like coming into port after a rough sea; and my happiness on that score remains to this day without interruption.

    Nor had I any trouble about receiving those additional articles, which are not found in the Anglican Creed. Some of them I believed already, but not any one of them was a trial to me. I made a profession of them upon my reception with the greatest ease, and I have the same ease in believing them now. … …

Hos Rorate Cæli leste jeg nylig denne interessante reportasjen om pavens besøk i Frankrike:

Pope Leo XIV has just concluded his apostolic journey to the eldest daughter of the Church. It has instantly become a clear and self-evident success for all to see. The secular Macron had hoped to accompany Leo and was turned down; enormous crowds turned out; young and old were united in a new passion for the faith. A country that has had aggressive secularism as state dogma for over a century — and that is currently confronting the problems of imported radical Islam — suddenly looked as devout as Ireland half a century ago.

   Pope Leo actively sought to make this visit about the promotion of the faith rather than partisan politics, and in this he succeeded. Yet he clearly chose also to convey the Church’s moral teachings in a country where left and right have been defined since 1789 precisely by their rejection or defense of those teachings. Ethical debates and attacks on the Church are increasingly prominent in the controversies building toward France’s elections next year. Indirect political implications were therefore unavoidable.

   Pope Leo’s visit to France continues a pattern he established in Monaco and Spain: traveling to a historically Catholic nation that has recently legalized — or is at risk of legalizing — abortion or euthanasia, in order to proclaim a clear pro-life message. But in no previous apostolic journey was that message as dominant as it was in France. … …

I slutten av september og begynnelsen av oktober i år har OKB fått tre nye permanente diakoner, og jeg kjenner dem forholdsvis godt alle tre. Det passet dårlig for meg da de to første ble ordinert søndag formiddager i Fredrikstad og Bergen, men da den siste ble ordinert i St Olav domkirke lørdag 3. oktober var jeg til stede (se bilde) og fikk gratulere alle tre: Nicholas Christiansen, Erik Andvik og Morten Egeberg. (På grunn av junior-NM i ministrering var det ekstra mange ministranter til stede.)