We’re coming towards the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It has passed with less remark at the Vatican than it usually does, likely because of how much else is on the Church’s and the world’s plate right now: the wars in Ukraine and in Israel-Palestine, multiple natural disasters and...
From 1963 to 1967 (during the Second Vatican Council and immediately following it), J.R.R. Tolkien wrote several letters to his son Michael. In them, Tolkien, who personally disliked many of the changes then being made to Church discipline and practice, explains why and how to be loyal to the Church in a time...
This slipped through the cracks at Where Peter Is when it happened last week, as things sometimes do, but on January 14, Pope Francis gave an interview on an Italian talk show in which he answered, among other things, questions about Fiducia supplicans and its reception. His answers show a great deal of...
A reflection on the readings of January 21, 2024 — The Third Sunday in Ordinary Time (and the Sunday of the Word of God) The Book of Jonah is an odd little story, four short chapters that barely take up two pages in my Bible. He was perhaps the most reluctant of the...
“These are loves in which chastity has been missing: a virtue not to be confused with sexual abstinence – chastity is something different from sexual abstinence – but rather must be connected with the will never to possess the other. To love is to respect the other, to seek his or her happiness,...
Eve Tushnet has written a challenging and thought-provoking reflection on Fiducia Supplicans at Church Life Journal. Tushnet, one of very few public figures who identifies as “an openly gay, orthodox Catholic,” has thought and written extensively on the place of LGBT persons in the Church for years. Moving beyond the never-ending arguments in...
This upcoming Sunday, January 21, 2024, will be the Sunday of the Word of God! Established by Pope Francis in 2019, the third Sunday of Ordinary Time has been set aside so that it can be “given over entirely to the word of God, so as to appreciate the inexhaustible riches contained in...
Pope Francis, in a recent interview, said that “I like to think hell is empty; I hope it is.” There will no doubt be a lot of discussion about this, but I would like to add my viewpoint on the matter because it is a viewpoint that I have never seen mentioned in...
It is not new for Catholics to grumble about a perceived lack of “backbone” from the pope. The failure of the pope to remove bishops who have gone rogue, to defrock priests deemed heretical, or to excommunicate openly schismatic leaders can be frustrating for many of us. It’s not uncommon for onlookers to...
Many of the articles coming out against Fiducia Supplicans are interesting to read, but most of them seem to assume the point the author needs to prove in the first place — the fallacy of begging the question. Moreover, what they all seem to have in common is a complaint of ambiguity. I am...
A reflection on the readings for Sunday, January 14, 2024 — The Second Sunday in Ordinary Time We have all seen photos of ourselves when we were younger. Many of us who are younger have even had the opportunity to see videos of ourselves as children. Look at how we have all grown!...
Catholics who, in order to achieve some external good, collaborate with unbelievers or with those who through error lack the fullness of faith in Christ, may possibly provide the occasion or even the incentive for their conversion to the truth. Again it is perfectly legitimate to make a clear distinction between a false...
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