Some thoughts to consider if you’re at all concerned about the Synod on the Amazon or the final synod document: 1. A synod is ultimately just an advisory body for the pope. Likewise, the Amazon Synod was simply bishops and religious from the Amazon area coming together, as a unified assembly, to inform...
“My first word, uttered in silence and on my knees, has been a kiss on this soil (…) It’s like a kiss given in the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother” (scroll down for answer) . . . . .. . . . . . . . ....
[UPDATED OCTOBER 30: More signs of an Anti-Francis alliance between Küster and TFP with English-speaking papal detractors emerge: On October 29, two days after the synod came to a close, Edward Pentin of the National Catholic Register was seen having dinner with Küster on in a restaurant in Rome. This highlights the professional...
“The only and exclusive source of the visible institutions of the Church are the sacraments born out of the Side of Christ, among them the Eucharist and the Baptism that prepares it. Sometimes, we hear about «sacramentalism», opposing it to evangelization (Evangelii Nuntiandii 47), but this overlooks that there, in the administration of...
[Note: this article has been updated with a new section entitled “The Pope weighs in”] This Monday, October 20th, some people barged into the Church of Santa Maria in Transpontina, where the controversial statues were kept and displayed, stole them, and threw them into the Tiber river, while filming themselves doing the deed....
In his opening address to the Synod of Bishops on October 7, 2019, Pope Francis warned about “two synods”–the idea that while a synod of bishops takes place in the Synod Hall (Aula del Sinodo), a “synod of the media” takes place concurrently. This second, unofficial synod is the public, often vitriolic, ideology-fueled...
By Paul Fahey and D.W. Lafferty Those little statues brought to the Amazon synod by the REPAM group, so callously stolen and thrown in the Tiber, have functioned as a sort of Rorschach Test for the Church. Some Catholics view the image the way the Indigenous Catholics presented it to the pope, as...
Picking up on what the pope said last month about rigid Catholics as well as the parable of the the Prodigal Son, I want to highlight a homily that the pope gave back in 2016. In that homily the pope draws our attention to the older brother as an example of someone who...
[…] in today’s world, subject to so many rapid changes and shaken by questions of deep relevance for the life of faith, in order to govern the barque of Saint Peter and proclaim the Gospel, both strength of mind and body are necessary, strength which in the last few months, has deteriorated in...
“The role of the priesthood is to consecrate the world so that it may become a living host, a liturgy: so that the liturgy may not be something alongside the reality of the world, but that the world itself shall become a living host, a liturgy. This is also the great vision of...
Those who grew up without access to the internet, cell phones, or a host of screens on demand are familiar with the experience of boredom in a way that many young people today are not. Long ago we would whine to our parents about how bored we were. Even if our parents wanted...
“Tensions may arise between the theologian and the Magisterium. The meaning attributed to such tensions and the spirit with which they are faced are not matters of indifference.” The Church does not force people to believe something against their conscience. It makes a distinction between being unable to assent to something and dissent....
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