1. The title “Querida Amazonia” is Portuguese / Spanish for “Dear Amazon”–as in somebody’s female beloved, or the salutation of a letter. Oftentimes (not always), a papal document with a title in a vernacular language is meant to speak to...
“I have never understood the expression non-negotiable values. Values are values, and that is it. I can’t say that, of the fingers of a hand, there is one less useful than the rest. Whereby I do not understand in what...
The 1970s country-western song “Pancho and Lefty” was written by Townes Van Zandt, and is most famous in the form of a cover by Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson. (For what it’s worth, I personally prefer the Van Zandt original,...
The debate touched off by Senator Marco Rubio’s recent speech at the Catholic University of America reveals major fault lines within current Catholic thinking in the United States. What Rubio, who is Catholic, pointed out in his speech seemed straightforward...
Since Pope Francis’s election in 2013, a feeling has emerged that Catholic discussions about moral issues are essentially now being spoken in two different languages. There is a “Franciscan” language focusing on broad issues of what social philosophers call the...
Back in July 2018, Cardinal Gerhard Müller said that Catholics can safely ignore the Pope’s efforts to create an environmental conscientiousness in the Church. In what I can only describe as one of the silliest and most dangerous positions I’ve...
As a Catholic in a small Ohio diocese, it is always interesting when our local Church shows up in the national news. This week, my bishop—the Bishop of Youngstown, Ohio—George Murry was elected as the chairman of the USCCB Committee...
This past Sunday, Church-goers heard one of the most well-known Christian tales, the story of the Good Samaritan. Like all of Jesus’ parables, each layer of meaning contains a wealth of wisdom about the faith and our relationship with God...
Jesus saith unto them, Did ye never read in the scriptures, The stone which the builders rejected, the same is become the head of the corner: this is the Lord’s doing, and it is marvellous in our eyes? . ....
(Editor’s Note: Last year, WPI contributor John Cavanaugh-O’Keefe traveled to West Africa to visit his friend Fr. William Ryan, an American missionary priest in Togo, and to see the slave castles in Ghana. I asked John if he would write...
Yesterday Pope Francis, during his historic first-ever visit of a Roman pontiff to the Arabian peninsula, again made big news by signing a joint statement on “Human Fraternity” with the Grand Imam of al-Azhar, Ahmed el-Tayeb. He’s sort of like the Sunni...
In honor of our one-year anniversary, we are going to highlight some of our past pieces on various themes and topics this week. Today we’d like to share posts on six issues related to Catholic Social Teaching. Poverty and Economic...
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