In Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis reinforces the Church’s conviction that the central axis of the cosmos is a heart at once human and divine. This wisdom, already present in two earlier encyclicals on the Sacred Heart (Pius XI’s Miserentissimus Redemptor and Pius XII’s Haurietis Aquas), implicitly recasts and recenters anthropology, philosophy, and a host of other disciplines...
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has published its first annual report nearly a decade after Pope Francis established the Commission in 2014. In 2022, the pope directed the Commission to provide an annual assessment of safeguarding practices within the global Catholic Church, outlining areas of progress and key challenges that...
As the Synod on Synodality was drawing to a close, I found myself hearkening back to the Penitential Vigil conducted on the eve of this October’s meetings. I was struck, above all, by the apologies spoken on behalf of the Church by seven of the cardinals closest to Pope Francis. These apologies garnered...
This week I talked with my favorite online cleric, Deacon Steven Greydanus. As a Catholic who cares deeply about Catholic Social Teaching, the deacon’s writings since 2016 have helped make me feel like the Catholic world hasn’t completely gone mad and that I still had a place in the Church. In August he...
In this truly beautiful encyclical, Pope Francis offers the theology specific to the “revolution of tenderness” for which he has so often and so insistently called. In one sense, I see contemplation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the most exalted fulfillment of the Theology of the Body. The heart of the...
Over the past months, there were concerns that the Synod would decentralize Catholic teaching authority to episcopal conferences, with many fearing that such a move could fragment the Church. Behind these concerns was the influence of the German Synodal Way, whose calls for “doctrinal developments” on topics like sexuality and the ordination of women stirred apprehension about...
Hence, since there can be no doubt that Jesus Christ received a true body and had all the affections proper to the same, among which love surpassed all the rest, it is likewise beyond doubt that He was endowed with a physical heart like ours; for without this noblest part of the body...
On October 24, 2024, Pope Francis released his fourth encyclical, dedicated to the Heart of Jesus Christ: Dilexit Nos (“He Loved Us”). What follows is a summary of the encyclical’s main themes. It does not replace a full reading of the document, especially since, given its focus on spirituality and caution against over-intellectualizing...
I have read the pope’s new encyclical, Dilexit Nos, twice today and I have avoided most of the commentary and public reactions to the document. I posted my thoughts on X earlier this afternoon, so if you saw what I wrote there, you may find some of this post redundant. I expect to...
This morning, the Vatican released Pope Francis’s fourth encyclical, Dilexit nos (He Loved Us). The document was presented at the Vatican Press Office by Monsignor Bruno Forte, Archbishop of Chieti-Vasto and Sister Antonella Fraccaro, General Superior of the Disciples of the Gospel. The release date for the document was previously announced earlier this week....
After her 2023 disinterment, the late Sister Wilhelmina Lancaster, foundress of a Benedictine abbey in Gower, Missouri, began making news, including in august secular venues like the New York Times. Nearly four years after her burial, her body was found not to have suffered the typical decomposition process. Since then, stories have periodically...
You know what they say: Theology – you can’t live with it, you can’t live without it. Quite seriously: There is a problem inherent in theological study. This may not be obvious in prospect, but with even a little experience, the difficulty will likely prove troublesome. I can frame the issue through an analogy:...
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