One of the most important contributions Pope Francis is making to the church concerns his efforts to exercise the kind of pastoral magisterium Pope John hoped for.
Losing to the “atheistic progressive agenda” might be good for the American church. Just look to that specter haunting the nightmares of U.S. conservatives: Sweden.
The Vatican reaffirmed a controversial directive that excludes “persons with deep-seated homosexual tendencies” from being admitted to Catholic seminaries.
Some of the anxiety pervading reception of 'Amoris laetitia' invites misconstruals of the text that dwarf whatever legitimate worries that critics may have.
There is deep malaise among people who work in the curia about whether or not Francis's reforms will improve working conditions for its over 3000 lay employees.
It is worth stopping to reflect on what Francis has described as “the very foundation of the church’s life,” now, while the Year of Mercy remains fresh in our minds.
As Pope Francis gave the red hat to thirteen new papal electors and four others, he faced very public criticism from four cardinals and an Australian journalist.
The USCCB meeting offers another opportunity to ditch a style of culture-war Catholicism that has failed to persuade even many of the faithful in the pews.
The prospect of a Trump presidency has sent shivers up the spines of most officials in the Vatican, though Americans who work in the Curia feel differently.
Francis has made it clear he wants to renew the John Paul II Institute by developing the guidelines in "Amoris Laetitia," which traditionalists have criticized.
Notre Dame's president talks about the election and the call to serve the common good by engaging with political institutions, even in our pluralistic society.
Has the pope picked predominantly “progressive” prelates as the latest cardinal-electors? Or is it that the so-called "center" has shifted since John Paul II?
Whomever the Jesuits discern to be their next Father General, they should consider his skills in dealing with conflict. Especially with higher Church authority.
The provenance of the term “Benedict Option” actually offers at least some hope that it might actually fashion a meeting ground amid U.S. culture wars.
The U.S. bishops' 'Faithful Citizenship' has turned out to be irrelevant to the most pressing moral and practical questions raised by the 2016 presidential contest.
Mass facing the people has a profound beauty. A view of the priest’s back and elbows isn’t naturally or inevitably going to make anyone think of the Second Coming.
A phrase that many people in the last pontificate ridiculed as an unthinking, trendy-lefty capitulation to religious syncretism is fully back in vogue in the Church.
Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia has long been outspoken when it comes to the intersection of religion and politics, but this is not a normal election year.
Pope Benedict XVI resigned over three years ago; Francis is undeniably the only pope.Yet in some ways the transition is ongoing and continues to affect the Church.
Pope Francis may have named Fr. Pizzaballa an archbishop and temporary seat-holder of a patriarchate precisely in order to succeed the ambitious Cardinal Scola.
There won't be "reform of the reform" after all. Francis shakes up the Vatican's financial management, chooses new (lay, non-Italian) leadership at the press office.
