Two years ago, the Pew Research Center conducted a poll and found that barely 1/3 of self-described Catholics believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. This realization that most of those who identify themselves as Catholics do not believe in a core doctrine of the Catholic Church, the teaching that,...
The “Working Document for the Continental Stage” of the global Synod was released this morning with the title “Enlarge the Space of Your Tent,” a reference to Isaiah 54, which serves as a metaphor for one of the central themes of the document—the call for a more welcoming Church. The desire for a...
After months of speculation, last week brought news of the renewal of the Vatican agreement with China on the selection of Catholic bishops. Along with this news, predictably, came biased and ill-informed negative coverage from various Catholic media outlets. Whether driven by antipathy towards Pope Francis, simple laziness, or other reasons, such coverage...
In 1989, a youth minister named Janie Tinklenberg read a book authored by Topeka minister Charles M. Sheldon entitled In His Steps: What Would Jesus Do? In the book, Sheldon challenged his readers to consider how Jesus would respond when making important moral decisions. Inspired by this sentiment, Tinklenberg borrowed the phrase and...
To put it as simply as possible, (This post is an expansion of my substack post from earlier today.) The idea of Vatican III was once the exclusive property of liberal Catholics: a hopeful dreamscape where a progressive new Church will be sung into being, and all the wishes of those who thought...
It’s obvious who the bad guy is in this Gospel. If this parable were a movie, he might as well be Darth Vader or some guy with a handlebar mustache and shifty eyes tying someone up to a railroad track while he runs away with a bag of cash. He’s arrogant and proud....
May his love guide every people on earth and strengthen their common consciousness of being a “family” called to foster relationships of trust and mutual support. A united humanity will be able to confront the many troubling problems of the present time: from the menace of terrorism to the humiliating poverty in which...
Cardinal Pietro Parolin, the Vatican Secretary of State, delivered an address to a banquet in Frascati, Italy, for EWTN’s European affiliates. In it, he delivered a thinly-veiled criticism of their coverage of the Church and their behavior towards Pope Francis. Parolin began by reminding EWTN of the mission of a Catholic communicator, saying...
A violent squall came up and waves were breaking over the boat, so that it was already filling up. Jesus was in the stern, asleep on a cushion. They woke him and said to him, “Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?” He woke up, rebuked the wind, and said to...
In the mid-1600s, a young Native American girl whose entire family had been lost to smallpox was adopted and raised by her Mohawk uncle, refused to marry, and took a vow of chastity in devotion to her new Christian faith. As a result, she endured persecution from her adoptive family and neighbors, prompting...
One of the difficulties in responding to critics of the Vatican II liturgy is that they are attempting to resurrect a debate that was effectively finished in the 1960s and 1970s. This was long before the internet made it possible to digitize and store content. After the implementation of the reformed liturgical rites...
Yahoo! News ran an interesting analysis of the US response to the synod on synodality on Tuesday. Every noun and adjective in that sentence other than “Tuesday” might typically raise eyebrows, but the article, by senior editor Peter Weber, did provide a useful overview of the wide range of opinions on the synod...
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