Jesus for Money
Spy Wednesday, the Wednesday before Easter, is the day we remember Judas Iscariot’s meeting with the chief priests, during which he agreed to give Jesus to them in exchange for thirty pieces of silver. The sum was not nothing –...
Category: Commentary
Stuck in a Loop with Brugger and Ryan on Amoris Laetitia
On April 2, Dr. Christian Brugger and Fr. Peter Ryan responded to my article on Amoris Laetitia, which itself was a reply to another article they wrote in Catholic World Report. I must say that I truly appreciate their engagement. That said,...
Peter or Private Judgment? The High Cost of Rejecting Papal Teaching
I read the recent article in Catholic World Report on Amoris Laetitia by Christian Brugger and Fr. Peter Ryan, S.J. with interest. Pedro Gabriel has written a detailed and convincing response to the criticisms of Amoris Laetitia provided by Brugger...
When the Scales Fell from Our Conservative Catholic Eyes
There’s something that many right-wing Catholics—especially those who fiercely oppose Pope Francis—don’t seem to understand about people like me: we were once part of their world. We admired the same Catholic figures, consumed the same media, and shared the same...
Why are Amoris Laetitia’s critics stuck in 2017?
On March 19, Dr. Christian Brugger and Fr. Peter Ryan, SJ, “celebrated” the ninth anniversary of Amoris Laetitia with an article that feels less like a fresh analysis and more like a time capsule from 2017. I confess that, when I started...
The Deaths of the Young Must Not Be in Vain
In recent years, my native Mexico has been gripped by a crisis of violence. Organized crime, political corruption, and lawlessness have led to mass killings, forced disappearances, and a growing sense of fear and despair among ordinary citizens. Thousands of...
Father Chad Ripperger versus the Little Gray Men
Due to “unforeseen circumstances,” an event scheduled for later this month in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee featuring the controversial celebrity exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger was forced to change venues, from a retreat center run by the Catholic Schoenstatt movement to...
A Lenten fast acceptable to the Lord
The prophet Isaiah boldly challenges us to choose the way of fasting most acceptable to the Lord: “Releasing those bound unjustly … setting free the oppressed … sharing your bread with the hungry, sheltering the oppressed and the homeless, clothing...
Pope Francis Confronts the US Right-Wing Catholic Illusion
Pope Francis sent a courageous letter to the US bishops on February 10, 2025. In it, he calls on “ all the faithful of the Catholic Church, and all men and women of good will, not to give in to...
When Politics Touches the Altar: VP v Pope on the Ordo Amoris
One of the themes in the immediate reaction to Pope Francis’s 10-point letter to the American episcopate pronouncing his opposition to the Trump Administration’s mass deportation program was perhaps best expressed by Catholic scholar Samuel Gregg, who criticized the pontiff’s...
JD Vance and Pope Francis on the Order of Love
It is hard to say which is more remarkable: Patristic/Scholastic theological concepts being invoked by the Vice President of the United States of America, or the Pope feeling the need to put out the fire. The ordo amoris… sure. Of course. There is an...
Pope Francis affirms infinite dignity of migrants
This morning, less than a month after Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States, Pope Francis wrote a letter to the US bishops offering what many see as a stinging rebuke of the administration’s anti-immigrant and mass deportation...
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