fbpx

Where Peter Is

Created for Communion

A reflection on the readings for June 9, 2024 On September 19, 1985, at around 7 a.m., Mexico City and its surrounding area suffered one of the largest earthquakes in its history, registering 8.1 on the Richter scale. The consequences of the disaster were devastating and the following days were filled with chaos....

Which Pope said this?

There are, of course, those who are struggling with invincible ignorance about our most holy religion. Sincerely observing the natural law and its precepts inscribed by God on all hearts and ready to obey God, they live honest lives and are able to attain eternal life by the efficacious virtue of divine light...

Why does Vatican Communications still promote Rupnik’s work?

For months, the Vatican has faced regular criticism over its continued use of artwork by Marko Rupnik, the former Jesuit priest accused of decades-long sexual, psychological, and spiritual abuse against dozens of victims. Despite the evidence against him and numerous allegations, his art continues to appear in various Vatican communications, which has caused...

Cardinal Fernández’s New Norms: A Shield Against False Mysticism

Anyone who has spent enough time around the Catholic Church knows the type: they are variously stigmatists, exorcists, end-times prophets, levitating, bilocating, breathing forth the odor of sanctity – sometimes all at once. They claim knowledge not vouchsafed any other mortal before or since. On them and on their unique and unprecedented intimate...

Four Points on the Gay Seminarians Remark

On June 1, Mike Lewis wrote a compassionate, sensitive commentary on the homophobia experienced by gay priests. This is a subject of renewed widespread discussion in the Church following Pope Francis’s reputed frociaggine (“f****try”) remarks about gay seminarians last month. I highly recommend Mike’s essay. I’d like to write on the subject, however,...

The Core of Catholicism

A reflection for the feast of Corpus Christi At the core of our Catholic faith is the belief in the real presence of Christ – body, soul, and divinity – in the Eucharistic Bread and Wine. Take this belief out of Catholicism and you have a totally different religion. The sacramental life would...

Which Pope said this?

At the moment, the most income-generating investments are weapons manufacturing and contraceptives. One destroys life; the other prevents life. And these are the most profitable investments. What future can we expect? It is bad. The matter is complex, but this cannot and must not become an alibi for not addressing it. There is...

Gay Priests at the Intersection of Faith and Homophobia

I remember an article I came across more than two decades ago written by a man, Dennis, about Father Mike, a popular local priest with whom he shared a decade-long friendship. Father Mike had died suddenly some months before, and Dennis was beginning to hear rumors circulating about the priest that disturbed him...

America Magazine: NFL’s Butker “May Care….When He’s Older”

America magazine ran this interesting take on Kansas City Chiefs player Harrison Butker’s immensely controversial Benedictine College commencment speech.I’d like to recommend it to readers of Where Peter Is to supplement other perspectives on Butker’s speech in the Catholic press, especially to supplement ones that are (rightly) criticial or condemnatory. The author, David...

The Computer Gamer and His Highway to Heaven

Sometimes the most unusual of circumstances produce the most extraordinary people, and this includes those who achieve sainthood. The story of young Carlo Acutis is one that has captured the hearts and admiration of people young and old all over the world, and recent news that the young millennial will soon join the...

Motherhood and Fatherhood in God

It was always a lot of fun teaching philosophy and showing students how human reason is able to demonstrate the existence of God, just through deductive reasoning alone, especially Leibniz’ proof: “If the Necessary being is possible, then it exists.” However, what human reason is able to know about God in the end...