In the past week, it seems that celebrity exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger and his supporters suddenly decided to mount an offensive in response to the article I wrote about his heterodox and dangerous views way back on September 18. I can only speculate about what prompted this delayed reaction, but I hope this...
We can enter heaven only thanks to the blood of the Lamb, thanks to the blood of Christ. Christ’s own blood has justified us, which has opened for us the gates of heaven. And if today we remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us in life and are in Heaven,...
Much of everyday modern humanity takes the most basic value of religion to be its truth value, such that exposing a religion as false should be decisive. This is largely due to Christianity, and it has long been the position of most Christians and virtually every village atheist, even those of the global...
In Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis reinforces the Church’s conviction that the central axis of the cosmos is a heart at once human and divine. This wisdom, already present in two earlier encyclicals on the Sacred Heart (Pius XI’s Miserentissimus Redemptor and Pius XII’s Haurietis Aquas), implicitly recasts and recenters anthropology, philosophy, and a host of other disciplines...
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has published its first annual report nearly a decade after Pope Francis established the Commission in 2014. In 2022, the pope directed the Commission to provide an annual assessment of safeguarding practices within the global Catholic Church, outlining areas of progress and key challenges that...
As the Synod on Synodality was drawing to a close, I found myself hearkening back to the Penitential Vigil conducted on the eve of this October’s meetings. I was struck, above all, by the apologies spoken on behalf of the Church by seven of the cardinals closest to Pope Francis. These apologies garnered...
This week I talked with my favorite online cleric, Deacon Steven Greydanus. As a Catholic who cares deeply about Catholic Social Teaching, the deacon’s writings since 2016 have helped make me feel like the Catholic world hasn’t completely gone mad and that I still had a place in the Church. In August he...
In this truly beautiful encyclical, Pope Francis offers the theology specific to the “revolution of tenderness” for which he has so often and so insistently called. In one sense, I see contemplation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the most exalted fulfillment of the Theology of the Body. The heart of the...
Over the past months, there were concerns that the Synod would decentralize Catholic teaching authority to episcopal conferences, with many fearing that such a move could fragment the Church. Behind these concerns was the influence of the German Synodal Way, whose calls for “doctrinal developments” on topics like sexuality and the ordination of women stirred apprehension about...
Hence, since there can be no doubt that Jesus Christ received a true body and had all the affections proper to the same, among which love surpassed all the rest, it is likewise beyond doubt that He was endowed with a physical heart like ours; for without this noblest part of the body...
On October 24, 2024, Pope Francis released his fourth encyclical, dedicated to the Heart of Jesus Christ: Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”). What follows is a summary of the encyclical’s main themes. It does not replace a full reading of the document, especially since, given its focus on spirituality and caution against over-intellectualizing...
I have read the pope’s new encyclical, Dilexit Nos, twice today and I have avoided most of the commentary and public reactions to the document. I posted my thoughts on X earlier this afternoon, so if you saw what I wrote there, you may find some of this post redundant. I expect to...
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