The by turns troubling, saddening, and hilarious saga of the Arlington, Texas Carmel—Black Narcissus on the range—has taken a new turn. The Carmelites, after a long canonical and civil legal battle against Fort Worth Bishop Michael Olson, have reportedly affiliated...
Catholicism’s literary tradition is the envy of many other religions. It extends from medieval verse epics right through to modern novels. Pope Francis acknowledged this earlier this month in an interesting letter on “the role of literature in formation,” primarily...
The deep grief that many people experience due to environmental devastation—grief not just for “the planet” in the abstract but for ourselves and the people and places we love—is an object of wide discussion these days, at least among people...
I don’t think anyone finds this surprising at this point, least of all Viganò himself, who in recent weeks appears to have actively leaned into making it a foregone conclusion. From Vatican News: According to the Code of Canon Law...
On June 1, Mike Lewis wrote a compassionate, sensitive commentary on the homophobia experienced by gay priests. This is a subject of renewed widespread discussion in the Church following Pope Francis’s reputed frociaggine (“f****try”) remarks about gay seminarians last month....
America magazine ran this interesting take on Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker’s immensely controversial Benedictine College commencment speech.I’d like to recommend it to readers of Where Peter Is to supplement other perspectives on Butker’s speech in the Catholic press,...
Dignitas infinita, the new DDF declaration on human dignity and various contemporary practices that threaten it, reads mostly like a document that reaffirms traditional prohibitions—sometimes quite sternly so, such as in the section on “gender theory,” which section I think...
We of Where Peter Is mulled over writing something about what’s going on in Gaza for a long time before I offered to do so. The stakes could hardly be any higher for getting an intervention on this right or...
Note: This essay, which I originally wrote in 2018 and did not publish at that time, has been resurrected and refurbished to reflect the current state of play around Fiducia supplicans and its reception. Much of the forthcoming is theologically...
For Mardi Gras, also known as Shrove Tuesday in English Christianity, and in preparation for Lent, we present this poem by the great George Herbert (1593–1633). The Collar I struck the board, and cried, “No more; I will abroad!...
From Vatican News: “Let us remember that the path of holiness implies trust and abandonment,” for when Blessed Maria Antonia arrived in Buenos Aires, she did so with only a crucifix and barefoot, “because she had not placed her security...
As 2024 proceeds into its second month, Pope Francis has continued to defend and solidify the teaching on blessings in the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s declaration Fiducia supplicans. Most recently he has taken to the Italian weekly...
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