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.
Assessing blame can be useful. But it could also be paralyzing at the very moment when Trump’s foes, and also some of his enablers, need to take responsibility.
Denying the good faith of those we disagree with is tempting. But demonization is often used to deflect hard issues by denying the other side has the right to speak.
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.
For many who work, their employment is precarious to the point of affecting their housing opportunities, marriage and family decisions, and general peace of mind.
Whomever the Jesuits discern to be their next Father General, they should consider his skills in dealing with conflict. Especially with higher Church authority.
A disturbing level of Catholic insularity is perhaps inevitable when church leaders frame complex religious-liberty disputes as targeted assaults on Christians.
Despite what Donald Trump says, the country is neither a “hellhole,” nor are we “going down fast.” We’re getting better but still have more work to do.
Trump may be what sixteenth-century Catholic theologians were worried about, but Luther wouldn’t have recognized him as a Christian any more than the pope would.
Thanks to Trump, Virginia—a state that voted for Republicans in every election from 1968 to 2004—finds itself on the verge of becoming reliably Democratic.
The writer Dan Burt discusses renouncing his U.S. citizenship, his law and writing career, and how he adjusted to Cambridge and English society from South Philly.
The story of a group of intellectually disabled men contracted for low-wage work in a turkey-processing plant gets the full telling it deserves in Dan Barry’s book.
Trumpism is an ideological wasteland where anger is the only point and winning is the only objective. This GOP convention is what the wasteland looks like.
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.
Online media in the wake of tragedy could be doing something good. It may be a modern means of activating an ancient genre: a particular subset of human sorrow.
Church teaching about the use of force is paradoxical. “Just peace”—not just war—should be the distinguishing mark and calling of the global Catholic Church.
The British referendum revealed the weakness of the political establishment. The phenomenon points to the opening of a new chapter in Europe’s post-war history.
Where is a compelling vision of human well-being? Missing is the sense that “we are all really responsible for all.” This feeds into the hands of people like Trump.
The tensions within Orthodoxy are partly theological. But there is also a more worldly clash of interests, including the rivalry between Constantinople and Moscow.
Religious liberty has a damaged “brand” these days, and Catholic institutions have played a role. The nation’s largest church now needs to lower the temperature.
We need to name the anger of voters but in the restrained rhetoric of the common good. Would the cures offered by Trump and Sanders prove worse than the disease?
Criticism and applause for Francis’s newly created process to try bishops accused of covering up sex abuse; Where have certain “bad” bishops from the U.S. ended up?
Cardinals grapple with Francis’s unclear “but-also” logic; Bishops hesitate to implement changes pope called for three years ago; What will happen to Vatican Radio?
Francis holds first private talks at Vatican with Grand Imam Ahmed el-Tayeb; Former aide to Bishop-emeritus of Rome claims Ratizinger never really resigned as pope
A historical, unprecedented “Holy and Great Council” to be held in June may have important consequences for the Orthodox Church and its relations with Rome.
Like Twain’s mother, scrawling her thoughts on little scraps of paper, Scott Simon distilled his long hours in the ICU into clipped reflections, rich with meaning.
Pope calls for change in economic theory and practice to deal with refugees in Europe while Rome’s Augustinian Institute unveils “Master in Joseph Ratzinger” degree.
Francis reforms the “evangelical spirit” of the church as a rumored eighty-five percent of cardinals in the Curia disapprove, many because of his work with refugees.
Pope Francis appoints new archbishop of Havana, releases new document on the laity in the church (in Spanish), and rumors say McDonald’s is opening in Vatican city.
Writer David Means talks about ignorance and grace, the nature of time, the lasting effects of Vietnam, and how he came to write his new novel, ‘Hystopia.’
To understand Francis and support the direction he has been setting for the Church, we need to think more deeply about the ways and means of “forgiveness.”
Francis regards the sacrament’s indissolubility as a “gift” rather than a “yoke,” and chides those whose efforts to defend marriage reduce the gift to a “duty.”
The exhortation is a valiant and powerful exercise in the Petrine ministry of upholding church unity. Is it another starting point in Francis’s pontificate?
How and why Bernie Sanders was invited to the Vatican; Cardinal Burke’s backlash and the pope’s “bodies”; the important difference between “the Synod” and “synods.”
If John Paul II was the philosopher and Benedict XVI the theologian, Pope Francis is the poet pope, giving voice to the dreams and wisdom of migrants and the poor.
Anticipation builds for release of Francis’s document on marriage and family; impatience with his speed for reforming the Curia and replacing top Vatican officials.
Women at third annual “Voices of Faith” hampered by self-censorship; For every bishop Francis appoints that “smell of the sheep,” there are ten career clericalists.
