America takes great pride in its democracy, but simultaneously is quite ready to consider that it's open to manipulation, even corruption
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The bombshell in Baltimore confirms what the Holy Father has already made clear. He alone will decide when an investigation is needed. Only he will judge, and his judgment will be given without reasons.
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The life of discipleship, a blessing in itself, can be experienced as a burden in a fallen world. That’s true too in marriage and family life.
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Pope Francis has identified “clericalism” as a key factor in the crisis. It’s an ambiguous term that means different things in different mouths, but it must certainly include regarding priestly or episcopal service as a club to be joined rather than a sacrificial service to be offered.
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Fr Robert Taft was a rare figure in Rome who spoke up for persecuted Ukrainian Catholics
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We have been relearning painfully ever since that technological mastery enables us to do more, both for good and for evil
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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.
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It 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.
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Dr 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.
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The 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.
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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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