Reading the news every morning is nothing short of chilling. Not only because of the sheer number of stories about violence or war around the world, but because the existential burden of the victims—their suffering, their despair, their muffled cries of pain—is ignored or at least normalized. In effect, victims are reduced to...
Francis’s Critics, Vatican II, and the Theology of the People For all the accusations of doctrinal confusion—and even hints of heresy—it’s important to remember that Pope Francis’s magisterium was firmly rooted in the Second Vatican Council, and more specifically in its distinctly Argentine reception, known as the theology of the People. This theological...
Last week in my homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, I said, “Life has meaning when we are willing to live and die for something bigger than ourselves.” I also said that at the end of our lives, like Paul, we too should be able to say, “I have competed...
Reading the news every morning is nothing short of chilling. Not only because of the sheer number of stories about violence or war around the world, but because the existential burden of the victims—their suffering, their despair, their muffled cries of pain—is ignored or at least normalized. In effect, victims are reduced to...
Francis’s Critics, Vatican II, and the Theology of the People For all the accusations of doctrinal confusion—and even hints of heresy—it’s important to remember that Pope Francis’s magisterium was firmly rooted in the Second Vatican Council, and more specifically in its distinctly Argentine reception, known as the theology of the People. This theological...
Last week in my homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, I said, “Life has meaning when we are willing to live and die for something bigger than ourselves.” I also said that at the end of our lives, like Paul, we too should be able to say, “I have competed...
And here, if we urge harmony in your efforts, We beg you not to take it amiss: it is of enormous value to the Church. For in the unity of the Church, that is to say, in the marvelous union of all her members, which she has received from Christ her Founder, is...
In 2025, 173 years after Frederick Douglass gave his 1852 Independence Day speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” we can update his famous question and ask another question: What to the Migrant is the Fourth of July? This year, Independence Day is again a day that “reveals more than...
Every year on the Fourth of July for as long as I can remember, my family has gotten an ice cream cake, adorned it with candles, and sang “happy birthday” to America. This resilient tradition has looked different throughout my life. It began with my grandparents and their 22 grandchildren at their house...
Note: This is the second article in a three-part series on masculinity. It is perhaps strange that a woman authored these articles, although there is certainly no dearth of men writing and speaking about femininity, so perhaps it is not so strange after all. Sometimes someone with an outside perspective can speak truth into areas that are too close for us to fully perceive, and it is...
On July 1, on her Substack, Vatican journalist Diane Montagna released a leaked report from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF)[1] in response to the 2020 global consultation with bishops on the implementation of Pope Benedict’s 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (SP), which liberalized the use of the 1962 edition...
The bombings of Iran by Israel and the United States are clearly immoral when weighed against Catholic doctrine regarding war. According to the church’s second teaching on war known as the “just-war theory” – which stands in stark contrast to the Catholic Church’s oldest teaching on war which is “active nonviolence” or “prophetic...
Today the Church celebrates the Solemnity of St. Peter and St. Paul. The general rule – even with Marian celebrations – is that a feast is moved to another weekday if it falls on a Sunday. But the importance of this feast is such that not only is it celebrated as a Solemnity,...
A learned (and acerbic) Dominican professor under whom I studied told this story: An eminent Dominican scholar, easily identifiable by his fiery red hair, was in the habit of taking his daily walk past the Jesuit house. One day, one of the Jesuits, seeing him from the window and recalling a long-standing Medieval...
To bear witness to the Lord Jesus, the Bishop lives a life of evangelical poverty. His is a simple, sober and generous lifestyle, dignified and at the same time suited to the conditions of the majority of his people. The poor must find in him a father and a brother, and never feel...
Popular Posts