Last month, I was invited to St. Francis de Sales parish in Beckley, WV, to lead a day-long retreat about Catholic Social Teaching. The parish livestreamed my talks for the parishioners, and I was able to edit the video recording and adapt it into an online course! There is no cost to access...
Reactionary traditionalists[1] criticize all sorts of things about the mainstream Church, from architectural styles to papal pronouncements, from ecumenism to the use of the term “Holy Spirit.” Among this storm of criticism, however, one overarching concern stands out; traditionalists feel that the mainstream Church lacks enthusiasm. They point to many symptoms of this...
Papal biographer (and WPI contributor) Austen Ivereigh was in Rome for the consistory and the meeting of Cardinals at the end of August. It was also recently announced that he has been selected as a member of the drafting committee of the Document for the Continental Stage (the preparatory document) to be used...
As much as I loved working with the freshmen at Resurrection High School in Chicago, the ever-present challenge was to help them see beyond their own very circumscribed experiences. My thirteen- and fourteen-year-old students were growing in their knowledge of and sensitivity to the larger world, but that awareness was still seed-like and...
This month, September 2022, Pope Francis has asked us to pray for the abolition of the death penalty, saying, “Let us pray that the death penalty, which attacks the dignity of the human person, may be legally abolished in every country.” Recently, we added a new page dedicated to the Church’s opposition...
Editor’s Note: Today’s beatification of Pope John Paul I came up on me quickly. Earlier this year, I planned to write an apologia in favor of his cause for canonization, in response to critics who say that too many popes are being made saints and too quickly. My planned essay (which I will...
A reflection on the readings for September 4, 2022 – the 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time. It happened in a serendipitous moment, but I learned a little late that it is not enough to have goals in life, but that we must have a goal for life itself; that it is one thing...
“As a conclusion, I would like to present a thought that brings us back to the beginning of our reflections: the Christian liturgy is a cosmic liturgy— that’s what St. Paul tells us on his letter to the Philippians. We must not fall from that greatness, even if it is to give in...
There’s something in human nature that motivates us to imagine ways of getting out of impossible binds, solving the unsolvable, or that allow us to go back in time to undo the undesirable situations where we find ourselves. When we have a freak injury or if we cause a car accident, we might...
I’ve believed that ministry is my vocation since I was just out of high school, and I have worked as a lay minister in the Catholic Church for over eight years. About a year and a half ago, however, Jesus put a master’s degree in clinical mental health counseling in my path and...
In case you missed it, here’s the replay of Pedro Gabriel’s dialogue with Professor Eduardo Echeverria about the orthodoxy of Amoris Laetitia: I have also converted it to an audio podcast that you can listen to here (or wherever you listen to podcasts): Where Peter Is · Amoris Laetitia – Conflicting Interpretations The...
In our increasingly secular world, one would not expect a religious conversion to necessarily be breaking news. Yet when actor Shia LaBeouf shared in an interview with Bishop Robert Barron that he had decided to enter the Catholic Church after his experience playing Padre Pio in an upcoming movie, the story made headlines...
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