A reflection on the readings of September 18, 2022 — the Twenty-fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time. The audio, when available, will be posted here. At a Labor Day Mass one year, I offered a reflection on the Church’s teaching on human labor. I remember that that homily was about meaningful work, just wages,...
A group of Catholic scholars, writers, and clerics—including four bishops—recently issued a statement claiming that Pope Francis contradicts the teaching of the Council of Trent in no. 5 of his June 29, 2022 apostolic letter, Desiderio Desideravi. The authors of this statement, which is entitled The Teaching of the Catholic faith on the...
It is, moreover, our will that Catholics should abstain from certain appellations which have recently been brought into use to distinguish one group of Catholics from another. They are to be avoided not only as “profane novelties of words,” out of harmony with both truth and justice, but also because they give rise...
The primary reason for Pope Francis’s trip to Kazakhstan this week was to attend the VII Congress Of the Leaders Of World And Traditional Religions. During his address on Wednesday, September 14, the pope spoke forcefully about the principle of religious freedom, calling it “an essential condition for genuinely human and integral development.”...
Pope Francis arrived in Kazakhstan on Tuesday, September 13, for his apostolic journey to the country and to participate in the Seventh Congress of Leaders of World and Traditional Religions. The Holy Father, who has been seen throughout the trip in his wheelchair, just as he was as in Canada, said that he...
Much has been made in recent weeks of actor Shia LaBeouf’s reported conversion to Roman Catholicism. To label Mr. LeBeouf, who was reared in a household he has characterized as “hippie Jewish,” a true convert to the ways of the Church of Rome may be premature. Time will tell whether the actor, a...
At the ripe old age of five, I embarked on a long path of learning how to create a sense of orderliness and discipline for my mind, body, and heart. On my first day of kindergarten, my mother defined the morning habits that have stuck with me after 25 years of school (both...
I’ve been reflecting lately on the reasons we started Where Peter Is, especially in light of the controversies and challenges we have been addressing these days. In the beginning, we had no idea whether anyone would read our group blog. We posted two or three times a week, typically. Our growth was unexpected,...
A reflection on the readings for the Twenty-Fourth Sunday in Ordinary Time, September 11, 2022. “Filled with compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him and kissed him.” The parables of mercy, three of which we hear today, are meant to awaken deep within us the truth about God’s love and mercy. There...
What makes a literary classic? That was the opening question of a lecture during my last graduate theology course. The premise of the course was that the Lectionary can be read as a classic would. So, what is a classic? Four characteristics come to mind: A classic’s relevance endures despite the challenges that...
In this experience we note two aspects, above all. The first is time: that is, the thoughts of the world are attractive at the beginning, but then they lose their lustre and leave emptiness and discontent; they leave you that way, empty. Thoughts of God, on the contrary, rouse first a certain resistance –...
I’ve been sitting on this one. It’s Friday night and my family has just wrapped up the first full week of school for our kids. It’s been a challenge, transitioning from 10 years of homeschooling and enrolling all four of them into Catholic school for the first time. As a result, I’ve been...
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