A new book on Francis by noted papal biographer Austen Ivereigh promised to be more critical. And yet in important ways, it again lets Francis off the hook.
If the hierarchy wants to reclaim some moral authority, shaping a better Catholic narrative in public life is necessary. Pace Charles Chaput, it must be inclusive.
Does capitalism make us bad Christians? Eugene McCarraher thinks so. His new book, The Enchantments of Mammon, explains how money came to replace God in the modern era, seducing us with false promises of profit maximization.
By dragging Benedict into schemes like Cardinal Sarah’s book about celibacy, the anti-Francis faction reveals deep flaws in the current emeritus papacy.
Despite occasionally sincere, sometimes ritualistic, expressions of communion with Rome, the effort to neuter Pope Francis’s message in the United States continues.
Rather than pagan nature-worship, perhaps the statue of a pregnant woman suggests that the Amazonian people are bringing the seeds of the gospel to fruition.
The synod on the Amazon will be remembered as the moment that bishops gathered in Rome asked the pope to ordain married men in order better to serve the poor.
Before their semi-annual meeting in Baltimore, the U.S. bishops are traveling to Rome to meet for a rare meeting with Pope Francis. Here’s what you can expect.
Newman’s problem was that the Catholics who admire his prose and the fineness of mind usually are not the sort of Catholics who pray for miracles in times of need.
What matters at the Amazon synod is not the imperative of universal consistency across all regions of the church, but the pastoral welfare of the People of God.
Kathryn Tanner offers a pointed theological critique of finance capitalism, which inverts the Christian understanding of human dignity and the dignity of work.
We need a truly international reckoning with the fact of mass migration, one in which wealthy countries actually confront climate change and food insecurity.
Thomas Merton taught me to value self-denial, but a bout of depression forced me to question whether asceticism was the healthiest response to my life.
Pope Francis’s gift of St. Peter’s relics to the Orthodox patriarch is remarkable. Rather than righting a previous wrong, it constitutes a genuine self-emptying.
In dealing with bishops who engage in sexual misconduct, the USCCB seems to think that bishops can police themselves, without lay input. We need a better system.
The Catholic Church now has a stronger theology of women deacons than it did during the fraught time of Paul VI. But now political conditions are less auspicious.
Msgr. Anthony Figueiredo has released excerpts from letters with Theodore McCarrick, revealing more details about informal sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI.
A video made by the Archdiocese of Bucharest in anticipation of Pope Francis’s visit to Romania kindles a spirit too often lacking in the American church: joy.
The recent UN report on the rapid loss of biodiversity failed to arouse our concern. But endangered ecosystems reflect our gravely sinful habits of consumption.
Seminaries still have a role to play, and should not be abolished. But they should no longer be factories for clericalism, elitism, and misogyny, as they often are.
The only adequate response to the clergy sex-abuse crisis is a paschal response: death to one way of being and resurrection to a truly new way of life.
Despite its ‘motivated blindness,’ which allowed the abuse crisis to metastasize in the church over decades, the Vatican finally takes steps toward systemic change.
Contrary to the narrative put forward by major news outlets, the resignation of the all-female board at ‘Women-Church-World’ was not caused by clericalism.
Some Catholics have critiqued the Document on Human Fraternity for its theology of religion, but little attention has been paid to its reception in the Arab world.
The history of the Children's Crusade deepens my understanding of the present: yes, the “little ones” suffer, but they retain a sense of dignity, even hope.
Pope Francis is a highly original and supple thinker, with a breadth of knowledge accumulated over five decades. A new book fleshes out his intellectual journey.
The defamation of Cardinal Toribio Ticona follows an all-too-familiar pattern, as one of Pope Francis’s appointments becomes a proxy in church culture wars
The four-day Vatican summit on sex abuse revealed an unsettling paradox: the hierarchy practicing reform, and victims’ groups scorning of a missed opportunity
