Today those of us in the United States celebrate the feast day of St. Kateri Tekakwitha, who was the first Native American to be declared a saint and is the patroness of the environment and ecology (in Canada, her feast day is celebrated on April 17th). Since this year is marked by the...
In the book of Leviticus, we read that priests were forbidden to touch a corpse; to do so rendered a person ritually unclean (Lev 21:1–3). The priest and the Levite in this parable, who may have regarded the victim as a corpse, were more concerned about ritual or liturgical purity than they were...
Today’s gospel reading raises some very important questions. And it gives us some very important answers. The questions are human, but the answers are divine. Here are the questions: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” and “Who is my neighbor?” The answers are given by Jesus himself. These questions and their...
So, we can ask ourselves once more: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27). The hymn from the Letter to the Colossians that we have heard seems to answer this very question: “He is the image of the invisible God, the first-born of all...
Before diving into my thoughts on Pope Leo XIV and the transition from Francis’s papacy, I think I owe readers a brief explanation — and maybe a small mea culpa. I’ve spent most of the past week working on a dense, reference-heavy article — which, as of today, has unexpectedly split into two....
Is “Moderate” Catholic Criticism Undermining the Papacy? What if the biggest threat to the Church today isn’t coming from Pope Francis’s loudest critics—but from those calling themselves “moderates”? In this video, Pedro Gabriel dives deep into the recent controversy surrounding the leaked Vatican report on the Latin Mass and Pope Francis’ Traditiones Custodes....
Reading the news every morning is nothing short of chilling. Not only because of the sheer number of stories about violence or war around the world, but because the existential burden of the victims—their suffering, their despair, their muffled cries of pain—is ignored or at least normalized. In effect, victims are reduced to...
Francis’s Critics, Vatican II, and the Theology of the People For all the accusations of doctrinal confusion—and even hints of heresy—it’s important to remember that Pope Francis’s magisterium was firmly rooted in the Second Vatican Council, and more specifically in its distinctly Argentine reception, known as the theology of the People. This theological...
Last week in my homily for the Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul, I said, “Life has meaning when we are willing to live and die for something bigger than ourselves.” I also said that at the end of our lives, like Paul, we too should be able to say, “I have competed...
And here, if we urge harmony in your efforts, We beg you not to take it amiss: it is of enormous value to the Church. For in the unity of the Church, that is to say, in the marvelous union of all her members, which she has received from Christ her Founder, is...
In 2025, 173 years after Frederick Douglass gave his 1852 Independence Day speech, “What to the Slave is the Fourth of July,” we can update his famous question and ask another question: What to the Migrant is the Fourth of July? This year, Independence Day is again a day that “reveals more than...
Every year on the Fourth of July for as long as I can remember, my family has gotten an ice cream cake, adorned it with candles, and sang “happy birthday” to America. This resilient tradition has looked different throughout my life. It began with my grandparents and their 22 grandchildren at their house...
Popular Posts