You may have noticed that recently my article output has been a bit more sporadic than usual. There’s a reason for this, although it’s somewhat embarrassing to admit. For the last month or so, I have been neck-deep in the...
Update July 17, 2022: Larry Chapp wrote a critique of this article in Catholic World Report on July 14. Pedro Gabriel has offered a response. Shortly after the May 29 announcement that San Diego Bishop Robert W. McElroy had been...
One morning, back in March of 2016, checking up on the news of the day, I came across a headline from the website of the Daily Express (an outlet whose alleged “journalism” has been discussed on this website once before),...
The odd timing of a consistory to name 21 new cardinals and his decision to forego knee surgery and instead use a wheelchair prompted some Catholics to speculate that Pope Francis may announce his retirement soon. When Nicole Winfield of...
The appointment of San Diego’s Bishop Robert McElroy to the College of Cardinals has stirred some interesting, often impassioned responses in the Catholic world. Michael Sean Winters of the National Catholic Reporter described the move as “thrilling.” Christopher Altieri suggested...
Cardinal-designate Robert W. McElroy, Bishop of San Diego, is not a man known for playing his cards close to his chest when it comes to his perspective on moral theology. He has been referred to “as a firebrand or as...
The following article is the text of a presentation, titled “Rethinking Our Method: ‘Fratelli tutti’ and the need to reconsider the nature and approach of Catholic social teaching and social engagement,” given on May 12, 2022, at Forum Plus, the...
On Wednesday, May 11, the former Bishop of Hong Kong, Cardinal Joseph Zen, was arrested along with several other activists on charges related to their involvement with a now-inactive charity, the 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund, which was founded to help...
For decades in certain traditionalist Catholic circles, conspiracy theories have been circulated claiming (among other things) that Pope St. Paul VI and other prominent bishops at the time of Vatican II were secret Freemasons. Paranoia about Freemasons trying to take...
In the second installment of this series on Stephanie Gordon’s book, Ask Your Husband: A Catholic Guide to Femininity, published in February by TAN Books, I discussed how Gordon’s guidance is potentially harmful to her readers’ wellbeing. Today I’d like...
I suppose it was inevitable, but on the eve of Pope Francis’s historic consecration a new conspiracy theory has popped up. It has been championed by the usual suspects in an apparent attempt to disrupt what promises to be a...
Two high-ranking Catholic bishops made headlines recently by calling for a change in Church teaching on homosexuality. On February 3, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, the Bishop of Luxembourg, said bluntly that Catholic doctrine on homosexuality is “sinful” and “wrong” because it...
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