Where Peter Is

Tagged: Scandal

Reflection

We must address the structural issues that plague the Church

In Pope Francis’s 2013 apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, he expressed his desire for a renewed missionary impulse throughout the entire Church. Francis called for the Church to become more mission-oriented by making “ordinary pastoral activity on every level more inclusive...

We must address the structural issues that plague the Church

Reflection

A Love Letter to my Catholic Friends

I see you. You were brought up with CCD and Sunday Mass and played Necco wafer communion. You gave up candy for Lent, ate fish sticks on Fridays, and know what “Holy Day of Obligation” means (get thyself to church).  Your...

A Love Letter to my Catholic Friends

Commentary

Breakfast of Scandals: Chaput adds to Barr fiasco

William Barr, a Catholic, has generated controversy since he began his tenure as Attorney General of the United States in February 2019. Among other things, on July 25, 2019, he ordered the Federal Bureau of Prisons to execute five federal...

Breakfast of Scandals: Chaput adds to Barr fiasco

Reflection

My pastor was arrested for sex trafficking—My response

On Tuesday, August 18th, the pastor of my parish, Fr. Michael Zacharias, was arrested for sex trafficking. He seemed like a nice and normal person. He did not come off as creepy. I knew him casually in the way most...

My pastor was arrested for sex trafficking—My response

Commentary

How Schism is Ignited

In fire safety classes, we’re told about the four1 conditions necessary for a fire to start: Fuel, Heat, Oxygen, and Flashpoint or Ignition. They call it a fire tetrahedron. Without all four conditions, you don’t have a fire. I bring this up because,...

How Schism is Ignited

Reflection

The Harlot and the Bride

In the first reading today, John describes the apocalyptic fall of the great city of Babylon. While there’s debate among Scripture scholars over whether John’s vision of Babylon represents Rome or Jerusalem, for my purposes here I want to focus on...

The Harlot and the Bride

Reflection

To whom shall we go?

“Do you also want to leave?” That’s the question that Jesus poses to Peter and the apostles at the end of the Gospel reading today. In light of the horrors detailed in the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report of the unimaginable...

To whom shall we go?

Commentary

McCarrick and the abuse of seminarians

On June 28, I posted about the recent revelations of credible and substantiated abuse accusations against Cardinal McCarrick by a former teenage altar boy. I also discussed Cardinal Joseph Tobin’s revelation that there have been three past accusations directed at...

McCarrick and the abuse of seminarians

Commentary

Scandal!

“And he said to his disciples: It is impossible that scandals should not come: but woe to him through whom they come. It were better for him, that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and he cast into the...

Scandal!

Reflection

Cardinal McCarrick and the Church’s Ticking Time Bombs

Last week’s revelation that 87-year-old retired Cardinal Theodore McCarrick has been removed from public ministry on charges that he twice molested a teenage boy in New York in 1970 and 1971 marks a new low for the Catholic Church in...

Cardinal McCarrick and the Church’s Ticking Time Bombs