Two back-to-back pieces of Catholic news are on my mind this morning. The first is Pope Francis’s new bull, Misericordiae Vultus, which opens the Jubilee Year of Mercy beginning on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. The second, mentioned over at Rorate Caeli, is that the Argentine government now officially recognizes the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) as part of the Catholic Church. There were rumblings a year ago that Pope Francis himself would intervene on behalf of the Society to ensure they acquired proper legal standing in the Holy Father’s homeland, and so it stands to reason that this is what happened. Civil legal recognition is not the same as canonical recognition of course, though it’s not nothing either—especially if the Pope is involved. If this modest but important act is a demonstration of the sort of mercy Francis has in mind for the upcoming jubilee year, then let us be glad and rejoice in it. That is to say, let even Catholics who are at times understandably confused, perturbed, and/or upset with some of the Pope’s words and deeds recognize that mercy is at the heart of the Church’s divine mission.

My original plan was to write nothing today and simply make sure that some “pre-set” posts went live around the appropriate time. Then The Remnant decided to publish online a 1973 letter by the great French Catholic social thinker Jean Ousset. As the newspaper’s editor Michael Matt makes clear in his introduction, the blasphemies and scandals we are witnessing today were probably never conceived of in 1973. On the day when we especially remember the wounds inflicted upon Christ’s body during the Passion, we should not forget the wounds that are daily inflicted upon Christ’s Mystical Body, the Holy Catholic Church, and the mystery of her suffering at this present time. Ousset’s letter is firm in its admonition that no Catholic has any right to despair, regardless of how dark the sky grows. It is a crucial message which, in more recent times, has been delivered forcefully by Bishop Bernard Fellay, Superior General of the Society of St. Pius X. Regardless of what you may think about the Society as a whole, Bishop Fellay is neither playing ecclesial politics nor advancing an ideology when he cautions the faithful against the temptation to forego charity for bitterness or lose their souls in a state of panic because these days, these often confusing and tumultuous days, do not seem to align with an abstract, perhaps romantic, image of how the Church ought to look, feel, act, and so forth.