J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterwork The Lord of the Rings has made it into Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical — and the reference reads like a veiled rebuke of Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and Tolkien superfan whose dystopian vision twists religion, governance, and freedom into instruments of domination. Toward the end of the...
It is often said that when the Pope speaks, the world listens. Throughout its history — and especially over the past century — the Church has found itself speaking prophetically at key turning points of modern life. For example, in 1891, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum responded to the upheaval of the Industrial...
Pope Leo XIV has recently surprised many not only by saying that he is not afraid of those who flaunt great military and political power. He has also surprised us by offering a critical — and at the same time hopeful — reading of the new society beginning to take shape through the...
J.R.R. Tolkien’s masterwork The Lord of the Rings has made it into Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical — and the reference reads like a veiled rebuke of Peter Thiel, the billionaire tech investor and Tolkien superfan whose dystopian vision twists religion, governance, and freedom into instruments of domination. Toward the end of the...
It is often said that when the Pope speaks, the world listens. Throughout its history — and especially over the past century — the Church has found itself speaking prophetically at key turning points of modern life. For example, in 1891, Pope Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum responded to the upheaval of the Industrial...
Pope Leo XIV has recently surprised many not only by saying that he is not afraid of those who flaunt great military and political power. He has also surprised us by offering a critical — and at the same time hopeful — reading of the new society beginning to take shape through the...
There are few images that haunt me. One of them was hanging on a wall of the Griffin Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago as part of the Blue Paradox Exhibit on microplastics. In the image, a person wades waste deep through a seemingly endless sea of plastic bottles, the refuse of...
…work is not simply an instrument; it expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives. It is a requirement of the human condition, a normal path toward maturity, development and personal fulfilment. (149) Having your first child is never easy. There are sleepless nights, sore bodies, hormonal mood swings, and sometimes physical...
Pope Leo XIV released his first encyclical on May 25, a wide-ranging reflection on artificial intelligence that calls the technology a “change of epoch” (§4) and warns against allowing the human person to be treated as “a project to be optimized” (§112). Titled Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”) and signed May 15, the 135th...
Happy Feast of Pentecost! The feast, which marks the outpouring of the Holy Spirit upon the Apostles and is often called the birthday of the Church, was a busy one in the Vatican. During his homily at the Holy Mass for Pentecost, Pope Leo focused on three aspects of the Holy Spirit. First,...
Every month, the Holy Father Pope Leo XIV invites Catholics to pray for a particular intention. This May, the prayer intention is simple: that everyone might have food and that food is not wasted. It sounds uncontroversial, almost too ordinary to pause over. Yet it carries a quiet unease, because it speaks into...
Pope Leo has continued his catechesis on Vatican II, this Wednesday, May 20th, opening a new cycle on the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. In this first installment, Leo reminded his hearers, the Council Fathers “sought not only to undertake a reform of the rites, but to lead the Church to...
For the past two years, I’ve led online workshops about spiritual abuse in the Catholic Church. These are live workshops with small groups of people (12 or fewer). And to date, over 150 people have participated. One thing that I’ve been asked about several times is if these workshops are recorded for people...
Interview with Rodrigo Guerra conducted for Religion Digital by Jimena Hernández, Mexican correspondent. Translated from the Spanish original. Published with permission. “The pope is neither anti-right nor anti-left, but it is no secret that those who are immersed in some ideology feel uncomfortable with him.” “The reductionism and violence of the old guerrilla groups...
In this episode, I had a great conversation with Dr. David Lantigua about the Latin American roots of Pope Leo’s theology. We specifically talked about how Latin American theology is present in Leo’s exhortation Dilexi Te. We also discussed how the Latin American rereading of Vatican II is Leo’s hermeneutic of the Council, and...
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