Related to the problem of liberty, noted Pope Leo XIII, is the Americanist view that “all external guidance [that] is set aside for those souls who are striving after Christian perfection as being superfluous or, indeed, not useful in any sense…”[1] Americanism resists trustful docility to the guidance of spiritual directors and the...
Narratives are powerful. Narratives help frame issues and events, making them accessible and more easily understood. Within a world full of confusion and “information overload,” narratives can provide meaning and clarity on complicated issues and controversies. But it is also true that narratives can be dangerous. Narratives almost always reflect the perspectives and...
After reading Querida Amazonia, my initial reaction was to think we have a Pope that believes there are some issues more important than the priesthood. Those of us who criticize clericalism certainly believe this, yet many of us were disappointed by the exhortation. This may say something about us, especially those of us ...
In his late nineteenth-century letter to Catholics in the United States, Testem benevolentiae, Pope Leo XIII condemned the heresy of Americanism. Although few American Catholics know about this heresy, many of those who have heard of Americanism believe it is consigned to the Left alone. They believe Americanism is liberalism, progressivism, modernism and–for...
“This sanctity is what protects and has always shielded the Church from every positivist and manipulative ideological reductionism (…) The synodal perspective does not cancel out antagonism or surprises, and neither do conflicts get solved by syncretic solutions of ‘consensus,’ resulting from the elaboration of censuses or surveys about one topic or another....
In their contempt for Pope Francis, radical anti-Bergoglio Catholics even avoid mentioning him by name. The Pope becomes “the Argentine of Santa Marta”: Francis is the “Argentine,” just as John Paul II was the “Pole” and Benedict XVI the “German shepherd” (as if he was some breed of dog). These forms of clerical...
In this installment of the “Loneliness Today” series, I would like to talk about loneliness among disabled people.[1] This is a topic that a few regular commenters have brought up in the comment sections on previous essays in this series; I initially wasn’t sure whether or not I wanted to write on it,...
“But it is necessary to go even further. We can never say “enough”, because the love of God is infinite, and the Lord asks us—or better—requires us to open our hearts wider so that there will be room for even more love, goodness, and understanding for our brothers and sisters, and for the...
The pope’s official response to the Amazon Synod was released on Wednesday. Entitled Querida Amazonia (“Beloved Amazon”), it is said to complement rather than supercede the synod’s own Final Document (my analysis of which you can read here) (QA 2). The pope recommends everyone read that document in its entirety, and he says...
This is the second installment of our series on the New Americanism. To read part one, click here. The heresy of Americanism was condemned in Testem benevolentiae, Pope Leo XIII’s 1899 letter to James Cardinal Gibbons, then Archbishop of Baltimore. This heresy is sometimes hastily described as the American model of separation of...
As with so many of the reforms and magisterial acts of the papacy of Pope Francis, Querida Amazonia will surely make a lasting impact on the Universal Church into the future. Yet in the coming days and weeks, you will hear no end to the dissection, analysis, and—sadly—spin about the document. Querida Amazonia...
In an interview with Don Fier published on December 26, 2019 in The Wanderer, Cardinal Raymond Burke raised the spectre of a “one-world government” when speaking about the idea of global “ecological conversion”—a concept that has become a central theme of the Francis pontificate, but which was also promoted by Pope John Paul...
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