Vatican II marked a turning point, showing that appropriate change did not mean losing one’s identity but, rather, enhancing it or salvaging it from ossification.
The medieval Franciscan philosopher and theologian Duns Scotus is barely studied today. But the church would be enriched by a renewed engagement with his works.
The late Fr. Ted Hesburgh transformed the University of Notre Dame into a leading institution. A new book tendentiously ignores key aspects of his life and work.
By framing clerical abuse as a matter of sacrilege, Benedict reinforces the disastrous playbook that has guided the church’s response to the crisis for decades.
In our divided era, aggressive secularism and Catholic neo-integralism are not the only two options available. A new Vatican document revisits religious freedom.
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
We need to move beyond our inherited clericalism. The idea that the laity have no agency in the church is not magisterial teaching; it is not, in fact, true
The Catholic Church today is in crisis. But it is not the hierarchy alone who belong in sackcloth and ashes, begging forgiveness; all of us must become penitents.
The twin phenomena of integralism and intransigentism, on the rise among some US Catholics, can actually be construed as ways of leaving Catholicism behind
One thing our contributors agree on is that the question of belonging to the church is not a trivial one; the days of Catholicism by default are behind us
A new book examines the origins of the pope-centered church, in which we assume that the bishop of Rome writes encyclicals, convokes councils, and declares saints
Three ecclesial structures inherited from the Council of Trent are still with us today, and must be changed if the church is to be meaningfully reformed
While the church certainly needs a new, robust political theology of the common good, it’s delusional to look for the solution in premodern Christendom
David Lodge’s 1980 novel ‘How Far Can You Go?’ uses humor to articulate lay Catholics’ struggle to reconcile a rule-oriented church with an adult faith
