Narratives are powerful. Narratives help frame issues and events, making them accessible and more easily understood. Within a world full of confusion and “information overload,” narratives can provide meaning and clarity on complicated issues and controversies. But it is also...
The Church in the West is struggling to hand on the faith to the next generation. Parents themselves may find it difficult to remain in the faith. The abuse crisis has shattered trust in the Church, even while the Church...
My son was due to be born this week. For a few months now, I’ve been driving by the cemetery where we buried him, occasionally visiting him, each time a reminder of that life that was and could have been....
It appears we have reached a stalemate. Cardinal Sarah has given his version of events of how the book, From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy and the Crisis of the Catholic Church, came to be written. Archbishop Georg...
In a recent article for First Things, George Weigel makes a fundamental error when he criticizes the notion, recently repeated by Pope Francis (quoting the late Cardinal Martini), that the Catholic Church is “behind the times.” His analysis–based on the...
If you’re reading this, my guess would be that you have a certain level of theological education (formal or not), intellectual curiosity about the faith, and a desire to debate and discuss that faith with others. But this post-modern era...
It is now officially 2020. Political junkies rejoice! For the rest of us, the heightened level of negativity and emotion that elections bring typically means many of us won’t be too eager to engage with others on anything that can...
On December 21, 2019, Pope Francis addressed the Curia in a Christmas message. Unlike many papal homilies, speeches, and addresses that slip silently into the Vatican’s online archives, this address received significant attention from the secular news media. Not surprisingly,...
Fr. Dwight Longenecker finished reading Rusty Reno’s new book and is now ready to declare that we are heading for World War III. But Longenecker’s article illustrates that a world war, spiritual in nature, is already upon us. Longenecker’s review...
What figure best shows how dire the Church’s situation is in the West? Is it Mass attendance among youth? Perhaps it is polls of self-professed Catholics that reveal little connection between the Church’s teachings and common practice? We know the...
The debate touched off by Senator Marco Rubio’s recent speech at the Catholic University of America reveals major fault lines within current Catholic thinking in the United States. What Rubio, who is Catholic, pointed out in his speech seemed straightforward...
America is a melting pot of various cultures and traditions. As American Catholics, we have a unique perspective on both the benefits and the challenges that this can bring as we seek to evangelize in our schools and communities. Multiculturalism,...
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