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...
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...
Trigger/Content warning: discussion of sexual and spiritual abuse, sexual content Because of the strength of its communities where people with and without intellectual disabilities live together, L’Arche has long enjoyed a first-rate international reputation. Thus, after the death of founder...
On this week’s episode of the debrief, Dominic and I discuss the new Kansas church consecrated by the ultra-traditionalist Society of St. Pius X over the weekend. We discuss YouTuber (and apparently now a presidential candidate) Taylor Marshall’s flirtation with...
Last night I read a longform article in the English edition of the Madrid-based newspaper El País about a Spanish-born Jesuit priest named Alfonso Pedrajas. After Pedrajas died in 2009, he left behind a diary that filled 383 printed pages,...
A review of Cardinal Sin: Challenging power abuse in the Catholic Church by Brian Devlin, published by Columba Books. Amazon link (paperback). Ebook link (epub and mobi). Cardinal Sin is the memoir of whistleblower and former priest Brian Devlin, a...
For The Pope: Answers, the much-talked-about documentary now streaming on Hulu, Pope Francis sat down with a group of young people of different faiths– some Catholic, some Christian, some atheists or agnostics, some ex-Catholics– to answer their questions on the...
For nearly four years, ever since Pope Francis spoke about the possibility of a traditionalist schism in the Catholic Church in the US, the standard rebuttal by papal critics has been: “The real schism is in Germany.” This is a...
Ten years ago, the world met the first Pope Francis with an unassuming wave from the loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica. The first pope from outside Europe since the eighth century, he arrived from Argentina also the first from the...
Certain political and ideological currents within the Catholic Church treat almost any contemporary exercise of magisterial teaching as cause for pessimism, suspicion, and worry. In this way of thinking any new teaching that isn’t a straightforward reiteration of previous teaching...
On Wednesday, following the unexpected death of Australian Cardinal George Pell, Vatican journalist Sandro Magister revealed that Pell was “Demos,” the author of an anti-papal memo that Magister published back in March 2022, claiming at the time that it was...
In response to all the depressing coverage of the sexual abuse crisis we hear, we are naturally driven to ask, “Has anything changed?” There is a sense that cases have declined since the 60s and 70s, but with each new...
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