Last night I read a longform article in the English edition of the Madrid-based newspaper El País about a Spanish-born Jesuit priest named Alfonso Pedrajas. After Pedrajas died in 2009, he left behind a diary that filled 383 printed pages,...
I don’t envy Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia’s position. Having one difficult job is bad enough. Having two can be especially challenging. When both jobs are subject to public scrutiny and any mistake will lead to an onslaught of harsh criticism and...
In an address to the members of the Dicastery for Laity, Family and Life on Saturday, April 22, Pope Francis emphasized the need for laypeople to never become “self-referential” when carrying out their ministries, reflecting on the meaning of ministry...
The synodal process and the recent remarks of Cardinal McElroy in America Magazine have generated a lot of good discussion within the Church about a critical and vital issue at the heart of pastoral care. His Eminence followed his original...
A few years ago, author and philosophy professor Edward Feser wrote an essay criticizing Catholic teaching on the death penalty. His piece centers on the following question: Does Pope Francis’s teaching on capital punishment amount to a doctrinal change or...
A few years ago, a family friend went to confession for the first time in over three decades. She was an otherwise practicing Catholic, but had a great fear of returning to the Sacrament of Reconciliation. My mom was still...
There is often a double standard in many Catholic spaces in how gay and straight Catholics are perceived to engage in sexual sin. Many commentators seem to treat being or identifying as gay as being inherently unchaste or as presenting...
In late July 2021, I attended Mass at Our Lady of Peace Parish in Santa Clara, California, with my teenage family members. I literally and figuratively grew up at that church as my mom worked as a secretary there for...
For nearly four years, ever since Pope Francis spoke about the possibility of a traditionalist schism in the Catholic Church in the US, the standard rebuttal by papal critics has been: “The real schism is in Germany.” This is a...
Last week, Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò — the former apostolic nuncio to the United States — published a new open letter, wherein the fugitive churchman welcomes the founding of the “International Movement of Russophiles.” I do not exaggerate when I...
“Synodality is not seeking a particular set of outcomes. It is, rather, a culture that we’re trying to build up in the life of the church so that we truly listen with respect to one another. That’s so difficult in...
I have written many times before about the difference between grave matter and mortal sin. The Catechism identifies grave matter as a breaking one of the Ten Commandments, whereas mortal sin is grave matter and “knowledge of the sinful character...
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