Several years ago, Pope Francis approved the Instruction promulgated by the Dicastery for Consecrated Life called Cor orans. This document laid out precise directions for the updating of the life of contemplative nuns. One of the most startling directions was to extend the time for initial formation, that is, the time from the...
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 “consistency problem” on X (formerly Twitter). Gregg noted that Francis did not so...
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 implicit ontological hierarchization of love; love is in the will, which reaches out...
On June 9, 1918, in a Denver chapel, thousands of people filed silently past the body of the first American Catholic laywoman ever granted the privilege of lying in state. This extraordinary woman was not a member of the city’s ruling class. She was a domestic worker, formerly enslaved, with only one good...
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 policies. In it, he repudiates the notion of stigmatizing illegal immigrants with criminality...
The abounding wealth, with which God the Creator has enriched the lands that are subject to You, allow You to go on with the struggle; but at what cost? Let the thousands of young lives quenched every day on the fields of battle make answer : answer, the ruins of so many towns...
Politics has been burning me out this past month. I feel a real tension in trying to meet the responsibilities I have to be an educated and informed adult while also trying to focus on the areas of my life and community where I actually have influence. In the past, I’ve found a...
Carl Trueman has recently written an online piece published by First Things, entitled, “Why I Am Not a Catholic.” Here is the heart of his answer: “the present pope seems to be nothing more than a liberal Protestant in a white papal robe. And as a Protestant, I am acutely aware of the...
Reflections on “a further reception of the Council” in light of the Synodal Process This article is based on a conference given by theologian Rafael Luciani at the Annual Meeting of the Latin American and Caribbean Women and Men Confederation (CLAR) for the preparation of the Third Phase of the Synod. Dr. Luciani...
I bet there have been times that you, like me, have experienced that empty feeling that you do not belong here, that you are an unwelcomed person – persona non grata. Now magnify that feeling many times. Imagine that you had to flee from your native country because of unbearable persecution and/or dire...
This week I spoke with Esther Harber. Esther is the Survivor Care Coordinator for Awake and a survivors of sexual assault by a Catholic priest. In this discussion she shares her own story and how her experiences of harm have impacted her faith. Esther has maybe the biggest heart of anyone I’ve ever...
Homily for the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Readings). The gospel reading on the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord (Lk 2, 22-40) is really about humility. The word humility comes from the Latin ‘humous’, which means dirt or soil. Basically, the humble are down to earth; they don’t walk...
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