The Vatican announced today that Pope Francis is being treated for a “polymicrobial infection of the respiratory tract.” The news comes just days after the Holy Father was admitted to the Agostino Gemelli Polyclinic hospital in an attempt to treat a prolonged case of bronchitis. It is commonly known that, due to a...
This is Part One of a two-part conversation with Dr. Marcus Mescher. In the first part of the conversation we discuss Liberation Theology, its origins, development, and relationship with the universal Church. We also spend time reflecting on the life and work of the Dominican theologian, Gustavo Gutiérrez. In Part-Two, we will dive...
In his compelling shift from words of blessing to words of woe in today’s Gospel, Jesus acknowledges that there’s an unavoidable distinction between the “haves” and the “have nots” in this world, but he warns that guarding our “having” to the exclusion of helping those who “have not” means that our present sense...
Also in the case of those who are forced to migrate, solidarity is nourished by the “reserve” of love that is born from considering ourselves a single human family and, for the Catholic faithful, members of the Mystical Body of Christ: in fact we find ourselves depending on each other, all responsible for...
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...
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