The Great War was Europe’s greatest civilizational failure, a kind of mass civilizational suicide. Any culture, any political system, any diplomatic apparatus that could give rise to a catastrophe on the scale of the Great War lost its credibility. It was no longer possible to have faith in Europe after Europe had massacred itself.
Read MoreIt seems Asia Bibi, persecuted for her faith, may be on her way to freedom. She deserves whatever help she can get as the mob waits to kill her.
Read MoreDr Cohen, the Jewish doctor who treated the shooter Robert Bowers, spoke of a desire to forgive – surely a desire born of the worship at that very synagogue.
Read MoreThe Big Bang, despite being used by scientists weak in metaphysics to “explain” that the origins of the universe exclude divine creation, actually points — suggestively, but not definitively — to a complementarity between astronomy and biblical revelation, righty understood.
Read MoreMy 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.
Read MorePope Francis desires a ‘poor Church for the poor,’ but in his papacy it’s the wealthy German Church that holds a privileged position.
Read MoreOur 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.
Read MoreParliaments 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.
Read MoreIf it concludes as it began, the synod on youth will have repaired some of the frayed relations among the elders of the Church.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreSt. 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.
Read MoreLike the new Latin-American saint, the Holy Father has chosen not to respond directly to harsh criticism.
Read MoreTwenty 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreThe 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.
Read MoreMassof 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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