My entire priesthood has been spent with young adults, a true mission field. And even if the labourers may be few, there are very impressive missionaries out gathering in the harvest. Their contributions were missed at the synod.
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Pope Francis desires a ‘poor Church for the poor,’ but in his papacy it’s the wealthy German Church that holds a privileged position.
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Our politics and common life since 1998 have shifted. The dominant issues of fiscal policy and trade and security have not gone away of course but other issues are competing for attention and influence. Religion is a big part of that story.
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Parliaments pass thousand-page bills that few, if any, have read. But theology is more important than civil laws, and a higher standard should be expected of synods — if synods are to be taken seriously.
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If it concludes as it began, the synod on youth will have repaired some of the frayed relations among the elders of the Church.
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The damage to the political culture caused by the discovery that a federal judge had skeletons in his teenage closet would be less severe than the willingness of senior senators to fabricate those skeletons as a deceitful means to a political end.
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The young person ought not be afraid of the demanding invitation Jesus offers: follow me! The invitation is radical and demanding, but it is preceded by the “loving look” of Jesus, John Paul insists, and is therefore possible.
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St. Stanisław and St. Thomas Becket are distant from us in time. Now we have San Romero and St. John Paul II. In Rome this week, both figures take their place in a long line back to that martyr-bishop who shed his blood at the Vatican itself, St. Peter.
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Like the new Latin-American saint, the Holy Father has chosen not to respond directly to harsh criticism.
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Twenty years is as nothing in the Eternal City. But in the life of one writer it is something. And so a word of thanks to my editors and readers over two decades.
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The moral problem with drugs is that they aim directly at compromising the reason, altering the perception of reality and the capacity to think clearly. With marijuana, it is often this hallucinatory effect that is the principal purpose of the use. Drug use is thus better likened to alcohol abuse, a violation of temperance, not simple alcohol use.
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The heart of Cardinal Wojtyła trembled in 1978, but his heart was strong, every day carrying within it Peter’s conversation with the Risen Jesus, until that day when that heart was finally stilled by a body that had grown weak.
Read MoreRomero should have been canonised in San Salvador.
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Massof testified to a grand jury that he snipped the spines of more than 100 babies after seeing them breathe, move or show other signs of life.
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The confusion of history and holiness now seems to be the principal objection to the canonization of popes.
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The resignation of Cardinal Wuerl brings to an end decades of service that will be tarnished, at least for time, until a fuller appreciation becomes possible. Yet the resignation might serve another purpose too, that of cleansing the culture of the clergy of one of its most serious vices, the failure to tell the truth.
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The following seven notable points might be taken from Cardinal Ouellet’s open letter.
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There are many cultural and practical reasons why the prohibition of alcohol is both unwise and impractical, but that it is legal should not obscure that it does massive damage, often to the most vulnerable.
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