Following the Unfaithful
In an effort to be more “welcoming,” many Church leaders are looking to fallen-away Catholics to lead the way.
In an effort to be more “welcoming,” many Church leaders are looking to fallen-away Catholics to lead the way.
A harsh rebuke, even an insult, might be necessary at times to save our fellow men from a path to damnation.
8 out of every 10 Catholics believe that other religions can lead to eternal life. How does this religious indifference impact the Catholic Church’s ability to live out her mission to convert the entire world to Catholicism?
Should the Church “modernize” by becoming more like everyone else? Or, should she hold fast to her ancient, otherworldly beliefs, morals, and rituals?
The falling away from Christianity by young people is often the result of them cultivating shallowness, superficiality, and solipsism as a philosophy of life.
Some Catholics seem to think that if we all pretend, really really hard, that everything is perfect in the Church, then it will never occur to anyone to leave.
When someone leaves Catholicism due to scandals in the Church, it does no good to accuse him of unfaithfulness or blame those who are exposing the crisis in the Church. But how should we respond?
Fifty years ago, the percentage of religiously unaffiliated Americans was about five percent of the population, meaning that in just two generations that cohort has increased 500 percent, and most of that has been just in the last twenty-five years.
For the past sixty years, Catholics have been imitating Protestants in our liturgy, youth outreach, and other aspects of Catholic life. How has this impacted the Church, and is there a better way forward?
At a time when religious practice is rapidly declining in this country, any rapidly-growing subset of the Faith is an anomaly that should interest our Catholic bishops.
This century has seen a dramatic collapse in religious practice, including Catholicism, in America. What is causing so many people to lose their faith?
How does the Church evangelize men and women of the West, who don’t even recognize basic reality?
Whereas we expect to be met with hostility when we attempt to share our Faith with others, often the experience is just the opposite.
The Catholic Church in the U.S. has been in constant decline for 50 years, but that downward trend experienced three significant accelerations during that time. Find out what they are and what Catholics can do to reverse the downward spiral.
I will not follow this new synodal listening blueprint, and I will not oblige Pope Francis’ reproach of Catholic proselytization. I will listen to God. And I will hold fast to Christ’s words of the Great Commission.
The number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation—dubbed “the Nones”—has been growing steadily for two decades. The Nones are now a slightly larger percentage of the American population than Catholics. But they are not all atheists: half say they believe in God. The problem for many of them is organized religion: over 70 percent … Read more
A structural reform of the Roman Curia has been one of the goals of Pope Francis and a reason why he was elected pope. Even some in the Curia support the idea. The last two major reforms were made by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, yet many think what they did no longer … Read more
We preach doctrine, and doctrine exists to be preached. If that sounds circular, then we understand correctly that doctrine and evangelization are two sides of the same coin. Recently announced plans for Pope Francis’s reform of the Roman Curia have produced euphoria among liberals and concern among conservatives that evangelization is being elevated over doctrine … Read more
How ought we to approach our family members and friends who have fallen away from the faith in the hopes of bringing them back? New survey data reports that, for the first time in our history, there are as many Americans with no religious affiliation as there are Catholics and Evangelicals. More significantly, of these … Read more
There was a time when it was nigh impossible not to believe in God—not because of man’s irrational superstitions, as atheist popularizers tell it, but because of nature’s rational design. To early thinkers, the intelligibility of nature pointed to an ineluctable fact: a prime, non-contingent source of reality (i.e., the uncaused Cause, the One, Apeiron, … Read more