When I was learning French, there was a phrase I picked up without paying much attention to it. The phrase was « Je n’ai pas de voix au chapitre » and it means “I have no say in the matter.” It was only when I entered religious life that the literal translation – “I have...
Yesterday brought devastating news for the Church and Catholic journalism, when Catholic News Service (CNS) announced that they will be shutting down their Washington, DC and New York bureaus at the end of the year, and that all of its US-based staff would be losing their jobs. They also announced that their Rome...
Editor’s Note: At Where Peter Is we are excited to support the new initiatives of our longtime contributors and friends–particularly when those efforts are deeply shaped by the method of Pope Francis. Paul Fahey, a co-founder of this site, is launching a podcast with friend of WPI, Dominic de Souza. And we are happy to...
The “direct action” techniques associated with groups such as Operation Rescue have always been controversial among pro-life activists. Is blocking the entrance to an abortion clinic an effective way to save lives—or do such actions merely damage the pro-life cause overall? Is the use of graphic images a justifiable way to demonstrate the...
In Let Us Dream, Pope Francis cuts through the partisanship and the ideologies in our world to offer a simple diagnosis of the sickness responsible for the decay and moral rot that infects our culture. He calls this illness the technocratic paradigm, which, Francis says “is a mindset that despises the limit that...
After the simplicity and austerity of Lent, the 50 days of Easter can seem like an avalanche of sacramental and devotional gifts. About seven or eight years ago, my husband and I arrived at Church 30 minutes before Mass to get ready to cantor and lead the music. Usually, our preparation included catching...
In the first part of this series, I shared my own story of miscarriage and infant loss, and how grieving those children brought me into contact with parents whose children died in very different circumstances. While the pro-whole-life movement addresses an array of issues, my experiences have taught me that there are specific things...
This is a reflection on the readings for May 3, 2022 – the Third Sunday of Easter Kintsugi, or Kintsukori, is a 15th century Japanese art of repairing broken pottery and transforming it into a new work of art with gold. The name is derived from the words “Kin” meaning golden and “tsugi”...
He that reigneth on high, to whom is given all power in heaven and earth, has committed one holy Catholic and apostolic Church, outside of which there is no salvation, to one alone upon earth, namely to Peter, the first of the apostles, and to Peter’s successor, the pope of Rome, to be...
For decades in certain traditionalist Catholic circles, conspiracy theories have been circulated claiming (among other things) that Pope St. Paul VI and other prominent bishops at the time of Vatican II were secret Freemasons. Paranoia about Freemasons trying to take over the world was long a hobby of ultra-conservatives, and this was a...
The Mahayana Buddhist scripture Vimalakirti Nirdesa, also known as the Vimalakirti Sutra, contains one of the most radical ascetic statements in any religion’s canonical texts. The main figure of the text, Vimalakirti, is feigning illness so that he can preach the dharma to people who come to visit him on his sickbed. To...
Content Warning: This article includes personal stories of miscarriage and infant loss as well as discussions of abortion which may be difficult for some readers. I was a child the first time I heard the Christian band 2nd Chapter of Acts sing, “My God, they’re killing thousands. Killing thousands, without blinking an eye.” I still remember...
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