Pope Francis often makes a clear distinction between what he sees as a cold recitation of the Church’s doctrine and a vibrant encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. One of the clearest statements along these lines was in Amoris Laetitia, in which Francis wrote, “Rather than offering the healing power of grace...
From the crisis of today the Church of tomorrow will emerge — a Church that has lost much. She will become small and will have to start afresh more or less from the beginning. She will no longer be able to inhabit many of the edifices she built in prosperity. As the number...
Journalist Christopher Lamb provides an excelent preliminary analysis on Christus Vivit, as well as its context in light of Jorge Bergoglio’s lifestory. In this excellent essay, Robert Christian explains the roots of American Catholic polarization, one of the causes of much of the dissent and division within the Universal Church. A must-read! Only...
“We renew before God our common commitment to promote the dialogue of charity in every possible manner, following the example of Christ in nourishing his Church and surrounding it with the solicitude of his charity (cf. Eph 5:29). In this spirit, we reject every form of proselytism, every attitude which would or could...
Does God want us to be happy? Does God want us to feel happy? To answer the question, first let’s take a look at Scripture. Father Lawrence Boadt, in his book Reading the Old Testament, shows how the biblical texts, even from a historical critical perspective, reveal the deep insights of the human...
“The Church does not engage in proselytism. Instead, she grows by “attraction”: just as Christ “draws all to himself” by the power of his love, culminating in the sacrifice of the Cross, so the Church fulfils her mission to the extent that, in union with Christ, she accomplishes every one of her works...
The following exchange is a real dialogue that truly happened between a high-profile Catholic theologian, disgruntled with the Pope, and an archbishop trying to set him again on the path of obedience to the Church: “Archbishop: Let us now begin to work again for our Holy Church. Theologian: Indeed, for the Church of...
“Young people can help keep [the Church] young,” says Pope Francis in his new Apostolic Exhortation, Christus Vivit. “Young people can offer the Church the beauty of youth by renewing her ability to ‘rejoice with new beginnings, to give unreservedly of herself, to be renewed and to set out for ever greater accomplishments’.”...
I’ve noticed that “growing in holiness” is usually presented by popular Catholic media as something like “We just gotta pray more and try harder, then the Lord will make us holier.” As if becoming holy will take a lot of work, but God makes it possible. Similarly, we often speak of grace as...
Pope Francis has issued a Motu Proprio, enacting legislation for the protection of minors and vulnerable people in the Roman Curia and the Vatican City State. The Motu Proprio can be read in full here. These guidelines have been hailed by an editor from Vatican News as “state of the art” and up-to-date...
“Lastly it is most important that those who defend the interests of religion in the press, and particularly in the daily papers, should take up the same attitude (…) [S]o lofty, so noble, is the cause to which they have devoted themselves, that it exacts from the defenders of truth and justice a...
On Monday I wrote a short piece on Pope Francis’s trip to Loreto, where he visited the Holy House that is believed to have been Mary’s home when she was visited by the angel Gabriel at the Annunciation. My piece focused on his address (in which he defended the traditional Catholic teaching on...
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