In recent months, there have been a number of articles on Catholic websites about the situation of cloistered contemplatives following the promulgation of Cor Orans, the Instruction from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). There have been intense discussions about the demands put on the nuns,...
Conversion is not a feel-good word. There is an interior magic in every beginning, says Hermann Hesse, but life teaches us that there is also a lot of effort. Looking back to the Church’s sometimes glorified past for answers concerning the conditions in the parishes, the influence of the Church, or the number...
Rules, rules, rules. I’m a rule follower in general. During my school days, I wasn’t on a first name basis with the principal. I never got infractions or served detention. Rules just made sense to me. They set expectations and defined boundaries. They kept me safe. They made it possible to achieve what...
In recent months, there have been a number of articles on Catholic websites about the situation of cloistered contemplatives following the promulgation of Cor Orans, the Instruction from the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life (CICLSAL). There have been intense discussions about the demands put on the nuns,...
Conversion is not a feel-good word. There is an interior magic in every beginning, says Hermann Hesse, but life teaches us that there is also a lot of effort. Looking back to the Church’s sometimes glorified past for answers concerning the conditions in the parishes, the influence of the Church, or the number...
Rules, rules, rules. I’m a rule follower in general. During my school days, I wasn’t on a first name basis with the principal. I never got infractions or served detention. Rules just made sense to me. They set expectations and defined boundaries. They kept me safe. They made it possible to achieve what...
Influential reactionary Catholics, including a former US papal nuncio, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, and Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, have told their followers to reject the COVID-19 vaccines because of their supposed connection to abortion. Such advice has already been criticized on many different levels. Most obviously, such advice puts their followers...
[Updated below] We’re a little more than two weeks into 2022, and the battle for the soul of the US Church continues to escalate. Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, Texas, whose anti-vaccine activism I have written about in the past for WPI, recently tweeted his support for a priest of the Archdiocese of...
A reflection on the readings for Sunday, January 16, 2022 — The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time Today we heard from the Gospel of John. It is important for us to know that, unlike Matthew and Luke, John does not have an infancy narrative or provide the genealogy of Jesus. Instead, John begins his...
“It follows that our indifference or cruelty towards fellow creatures of this world sooner or later affects the treatment we mete out to other human beings. We have only one heart, and the same wretchedness which leads us to mistreat an animal will not be long in showing itself in our relationships with...
Earlier this week, the USCCB tweeted a graphic featuring “seven attitudes we can all adopt as we continue our synodal journey together,” which many on social media criticized for various reasons. Some criticized its apparent “corporatese.” Others argued that the seven attitudes were unfamiliar or did not correspond with their notions of authentically...
Undoubtedly, Pope Francis is the pontiff who has most explicitly expressed the Catholic Church’s commitment to the environment and to the protection of our planet’s natural resources. Both John Paul II and Benedict XVI certainly expressed the need to build a “human ecology.” However, it was Francis, in his encyclical Laudato Si’, who...
On January 8, 2022, Crisis Magazine published an article by Mary Cuff, “The Beauty of Austerity.” In her article, Ms. Cuff presents St. Maravillas de Jesús, the Spanish Discalced Carmelite and Foundress, as the model and patron saint of resistance to the “increasing pressure to update the Carmelite traditions and Rule for ‘modern...
Today everything comes under the laws of competition and the survival of the fittest, where the powerful feed upon the powerless. As a consequence, masses of people find themselves excluded and marginalized: without work, without possibilities, without any means of escape — Evangelii Gaudium, 53 During today’s General Audience address, Pope Francis spoke...
When I was about ten years old, I started writing a series of short plays about “Big G” and His Son. They were cute and funny, but more importantly, they were my young self’s attempts to express my faith in terms and a format that made sense to me. My works included plenty...
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