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Category: Commentary

When Patriotism Isn’t A Virtue

Catholic Americans seem to revel in polarization. Our country’s two-party political system, which siphons the electorate into severely limited options, certainly doesn’t help. But there’s an accompanying divisive insistence, particularly among Catholics, that one secular party or the other holds...

The futility of “Explaining the pope away”

Signs of an all-too familiar pattern are appearing.  The narrative that the pope didn’t really say what he said seems to be developing in some conservative Catholic circles. We’re still in the midst of the media circus after Pope Francis...

A New Pacem in Terris

Fratelli Tutti, the newly-published encyclical, must be read carefully to be properly understood. We must avoid the risk of trivialization that focuses on two or three points and reduces the document to little more than a series of pious intentions....

The inanity of CTRL-F criticism

“This document has 43,000 words. 43,000 words. So that’s a lot. This is—I believe this is his longest encyclical. I didn’t compare it, but it feels like the longest. And I’m going to throw something up on the screen that...

Fraternity: A dirty word?

In his new encyclical Fratelli tutti, Pope Francis warns about how the word solidarity, “is not always well received; in certain situations, it has become a dirty word, a word that dare not be said.” (#116). I believe something similar...