Catholic Americans seem to revel in polarization. Our country’s two-party political system, which siphons the electorate into severely limited options, certainly doesn’t help. But there’s an accompanying divisive insistence, particularly among Catholics, that one secular party or the other holds...
We have come to know and expect that whenever the pope writes or says anything of significance, he will earn the ire of professional provocateurs. Now, in the eighth year of Francis’s papacy, there’s a certain comforting predictability about the...
One key to understanding the Church’s teaching on the economy is to ask—as Francis does in Fratelli Tutti—whether we “include or exclude those lying wounded along the roadside” (FT 69). This is, of course, a reference to the parable of...
It has become common in certain Catholic circles to label Pope Francis (and the post-Conciliar Church) as “modernist.” This term is applied to stand in opposition to “tradition,” a fundamental Catholic value. After all, Tradition (with capital “T”) is one...
I am a busy husband and dad with a demanding job, so reading a lengthy papal document is not the easiest thing to take the time to do, nor is it typically high on my list of things to do....
Pope Francis’s recent encyclical, Fratelli tutti, presents fraternity as a necessary, Christocentric ingredient of and precondition for the betterment and advancement of society. Though the language of “fraternity” has not made many appearances in previous social encyclicals, and struck many...
Fratelli Tutti is a signature encyclical—not only of Francis’s papacy, but for the Catholic Church. During a pandemic, when the world seems to be at a political, social, religious, and ecological tipping point, comes a papal encyclical on “fraternity” and...
Fratelli Tutti, the newly-published encyclical, must be read carefully to be properly understood. We must avoid the risk of trivialization that focuses on two or three points and reduces the document to little more than a series of pious intentions....
Critics of Pope Francis often accuse him of disrespecting the traditions of the Church and rejecting the core values that make the Church what it is. Sometimes, they view Pope Francis’s openness to other cultures as proof that he wants...
Pope Francis’s third encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, on Fraternity and Social Friendship, is a gift to the Church and to the human race. Building on previous social encyclicals, including his own Laudato Si’ (2015) and Benedict XVI’s Caritas in Veritate (2009),...
A reflection on the Mass readings for the Twenty-eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time. At my parish, I am currently leading an eight-week series on St. John of the Cross. John’s poems are all brilliant, but the ones that are the...
The pandemic has revealed how inadequate our virtual lifestyles are for sustaining strong communities. Yes, the lockdowns, capacity limits, and other precautions were necessitated by a charity towards others in our society, especially the elderly and other vulnerable populations, and...
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