The late German theologian Johann Baptist Metz believed theology was a culture of questions, not answers. Key to his theology was the unsettling figure of Christ.
The Shakers, who arrived in America in 1774, are a religious community facing extinction. Their decline means nothing less than the end of an idea of heaven.
Ministerial Juridic Persons, mostly comprised of laypeople, have canonical authority for church ministries. That’s unprecedented, and potentially transformative.
Readers respond to pieces about the reach of EWTN, the performative politics of abortion, and the Vatican’s failure to consult the laity on reproductive technology.
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.