“From the Church’s beginning Peter exercised decisive authority at the highest level. This exercise, accepted and recognized by the community, is historical confirmation of the words Christ spoke regarding the mission and power of Peter.” — Pope Saint John Paul...
It was perhaps foolish for my wife and me to attempt effective social-distancing with three children under six on a summer evening in a neighbor’s backyard. So we contracted COVID-19 on the Fourth of July. Our symptoms were relatively mild,...
As this millennium approached, John Paul II called upon the whole Church to do an examination of conscience regarding the extent to which it had received and implemented the Second Vatican Ecumenical Council (Tertio Millennio Adveniente 36). He said that...
As Italy was facing the full wrath of COVID-19 in March, Pope Francis quietly marked the 25th anniversary of the encyclical Evangelium Vitae. He stressed that the Catholic Church’s pro-life message is more relevant than ever: “The attacks on the...
“There is the presence of the Holy Spirit, the essence of the new law according to St. Augustine and St. Thomas Aquinas. However, this presence does not exclude, but rather demands on the ministerial level the visible, the institutional, the...
“The word ‘rock’ expresses a permanent, subsisting being; therefore, it applies to the person, rather than to one of his necessarily transitory acts. Jesus’ subsequent words confirm this when he said that the gates of the netherworld, the powers of...
There are, unfortunately, Catholics who think that defending Pope Francis involves tearing down his predecessors. Throughout his pontificate, they have portrayed almost everything Pope Francis has done as “finally correcting” the bad practices of his predecessors and ignoring the good...
ROME — The continuity between Saint John Paul II and Pope Francis is seen clearly by many, and examples of this have been discussed on this website many times (See here, here, and here). However, some seek to peg the...
My great-grandfather, Pawel Turowsky, came to the United States from the Russian Empire in 1907. Two years before, the failed Russian Revolution of 1905—harbinger of the successful Revolution twelve years later—had been brutally crushed by the Tsar’s forces. A wave...
Paul Moses recently published a fascinating article in Commonweal titled “Unheeded Warnings: How Vatican Diplomacy Failed to Prevent the Iraq War,” in which he reveals, for the first time, a letter that Pope John Paul II sent to President George...
“The Breasts of His Own Tender Love” Motherhood needs a cultural reboot. Perhaps no institution is as roundly mocked, belittled, and discounted as motherhood. Our society neglects mothers and discards them when it finds them burdensome. There’s an urgent need...
I will take one more instance. A man is converted to the Catholic Church from his admiration of its religious system, and his disgust with Protestantism. That admiration remains; but, after a time, he leaves his new faith, perhaps returns...
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