Ecclesiastical bibs and bobs

• Photo: Just for nice as Fr L says, an Orthodox church in Sibiu, Romania, from TLM.
• Last year Fr Lawrence Barriger made a point about Orthodoxy and liturgical revision (why essentially there is none): we have seen the almost total reformation of worship in the Roman Church in the wake of the Second Vatican Council which with few exceptions has been accepted without questioning by the majority of Roman Catholics. Such a fast-paced and complete reformation would be almost unthinkable in the Orthodox Church. In upstate Pennsylvanian parishes essentially it’s still 1962, which is great!
• East/West again.
• On the practice of going to confession. Of course not one jot of Catholic doctrine is changeable; V2 was a massive tactical mistake. Anyway, the distinction between venial and mortal sins, examination of conscience... Roman Catholic moral theology is the gold standard. Private confession and absolution of mortal sins before worthily receiving Communion almost defines a Catholic.
• St John Climacus. Commemorated in the Byzantine Rite today.
• Happy Lætare Sunday sounds redundant. (Pink is beautiful.)
• Patrimony: American Missal discussion on the Ship. What they’re talking about.
• On gossip and its Christian disguises.
• The sad story from Germany. Comment.
• For the Church to try to compete with the secular world in promoting modern music, climate-change awareness, fair trade or gender equality is merely playing someone else’s tune badly. By branching out into areas that are not its province religion soon loses its footing and ends up appearing ill-informed, struggling to catch up with the very secular society it is meant to be guiding – particularly if it falls in with the latest fad only for that fad to disappear or be exposed as misconceived …