Burying the dead is a work of mercy. So, too, is voting for them, according to Sister Marguerite Kloos. Or at least that’s what she thought last year until Ohio investigators nabbed her for an act of voter fraud. This week she plead guilty to the charge of voting twice, acknowledging that she forged the … Read more
There are papal encyclicals, and then there are papal encyclicals. Some escape public attention almost from the moment they’re promulgated. Others continue reverberating inside the Church decades after they appear. But there’s also a third type of encyclical: those which assume truly civilizational significance. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of one document that falls … Read more
Barraged by headlines like the New York Post’s “St. John’s Dean of Mean, Cecilia Chang, Commits Suicide,” most New Yorkers remain bewildered by the facts surrounding a sordid story of money, power and status seeking at St. John’s University. Last October, The New York Times reported that Dr. Chang, a longtime Dean of the Institute … Read more
Editor’s note: The following remarks by Archbishop Charles Chaput were submitted to the United States Commission on Civil Rights and published March 25, 2013 on Public Discourse. My remarks today are purely my own. But they’re shaped by twenty-five years as a Catholic bishop and the social and religious ministries that such work involves; ministries … Read more
How blessedly instructive it has been, following the installation of the first pope from the Americas, Pope Francis, to witness the world’s sheer unaffected delight in this man. His warmth and simplicity have endeared him everywhere. Indeed, he has disarmed us all by the spontaneity of his style. Of course—it needs straightaway to be said—none … Read more
The book of Genesis was written in part to counteract a theory later known as Manicheanism. It held that a god of good created spirit and a god of evil created matter. In this view, the more spiritual we are, the less we are connected to matter. This position suggests that by withdrawing from matter, … Read more
In a frank interview with the Wall Street Journal last year, Cardinal Timothy Dolan conceded that the post-Vatican II Church in America has “gotten gun-shy” on hot-button moral issues. The Church’s encyclical on artificial birth control, Humanae Vitae, “brought such a tsunami of dissent, departure, disapproval of the Church, that I think most of us—and … Read more
Amidst of all the joys of a new pope and my continuing wonder at the smooth transition effected by cardinals who pray deeply and follow a centuries-old tradition, there was one deep sorrow about the papal transition: being forced to read the repeated slanders in the press about my beloved Pope Benedict XVI. Media outlets … Read more
The Monty Python film, Life of Brian, has a scene in it where Reg, the leader of a group of Jewish rebels, asks what the Romans have ever done for the Jewish people. The assembled group chip in with ideas one-by-one, undermining the implication that the Romans have brought nothing by hardship to Israel. Reg … Read more
Hans Kung, the dissenting European theologian, said he was “overwhelmed by joy,” in a radio interview after the elevation of Pope Francis. “There is hope in this man,” gushed Kung, who predicted that Pope Francis will conform to the progressive interpretation of Vatican II and not follow the “line of the two popes from Poland … Read more
I came upon the following passage in the course of a web search yesterday: “On 28 May 1995 the lead article in the Sunday Telegraph’s Review section was headlined ‘A Saint among journalists?’ The article was prompted by a letter from Argentina signed by politicians, diplomats and an archbishop and addressed to Cardinal Hume of … Read more
A few days ago we all had a shocking surprise as a Latin American, Jesuit archbishop emerged onto the loggia of St. Peter’s to the general joy of the Catholic world. The rejoicing was widespread, but not universal, with some expressing misgivings. These are clearly natural reactions, to be expected in any election, sacred or … Read more
She lamented the encroachment of the state and the perils of the welfare system. She once compared abortion to genocide and the U.S. government to Nazi Germany. She cheered on income tax resisters, dismissed the benefits of the minimum wage, and worried about the decline of freedom in an increasingly bureaucratic society. But this was … Read more
In The Idea of a University, Cardinal Newman writes, “Men whose minds are possessed with some one object, take exaggerated views of its importance, are feverish in the pursuit of it, make it the measure of things which are utterly foreign to it, and are startled and despond if it happens to fail them. They … Read more
As the newly elected pope, Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s papacy has already been historical. His is a part of the world no other pontiff has hailed from. His is an order no other pontiff has claimed. His is a name no other pontiff has taken. Even from this, it may be fair to expect that the … Read more
Annuntio vobis gaudium magnum; habemus Papam: Eminentissimum ac Reverendissimum Dominum, Dominum Georgium Marium Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae Cardinalem Bergoglio qui sibi nomen imposuit Franciscum. The stunned silence in the second or two after the announcement from the central balcony of Saint Peter’s Basilica spoke volumes. No one was expecting the cardinal-archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina, to … Read more
The vacancy of the Sancta Sedes Apostolica, the Holy Apostolic See of Rome, is known as the sede vacante, the Latin ablative absolute of sedes vacans, meaning “when the see is vacant.” The Roman See (diocese) is called Apostolic because, Divine Providence deigned it to be the diocese of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul. … Read more
Years ago, an Oxford don, not rare as an eccentric but singular in his way of being one, kept in his rooms a small menagerie including a mongoose to whom he fed mice for tea, and an eagle that flew one day into the cathedral and tried to mate with the brass eagle-shaped lectern which … Read more
So the date is set. Tuesday, the 12th of March, the Cardinals will process into the conclave intoning Veni Sancte Spiritus, while the rest of us—personally or digitally—will get the “extra omnes.” Out we go, leaving it up to the Princes of the Church to perform their duty. Buoyed by our prayers and best wishes, … Read more
According to Christianity, we are made for communion. Created in the image of a God who is Divine Communion, we are made to give ourselves to and for others. Without Eve, for instance, Adam could not enter into the communio personarum and so was not fully able to bear the image of God. A recent … Read more