Archive

On July 27, Bishop Robert Barron was awarded the Josef Pieper Prize in Münster, Germany, joining the ranks of Rémi Brague and Charles Taylor. The prize is given “for...

Not that long ago, Vatican documents that miss the mark would have angered me. Now, I see them more as tragic events. Such is the case with Fiducia Supplicans,...

Ever so slowly, the “Synod on Synodality” is beginning. A preparatory process of “listening and dialogue” in parishes and dioceses throughout the Catholic world has been underway since October...

COVID-19 disrupts all things, except for the Synodal Way of the Catholic Church in Germany. The Synodal Way is a process launched in December 2019 to look for “steps...

The recent Vatican document on parishes, released by the Congregation for the Clergy, is altogether sensible. It challenges the status quo in a number of ways. The most important part...

Less than five years ago, the German parliament passed a law prohibiting commercial “assistance in dying.” Last week, Germany’s Federal Constitutional Court declared this law unconstitutional, on the grounds...

The Catholic Church in Germany has begun its “Synodal Way.” From Jan. 30–Feb. 1, the German bishops held the first synodal assembly in Frankfurt. Over the next two years,...

The German bishops have announced that they will soon publish new guidelines for reception of the Holy Eucharist. In the future, non-Catholics married to Catholic spouses and attending Mass...

Last year, Canada’s Supreme Court unanimously decided that laws criminalizing assisted suicide are unconstitutional and in violation of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Following the court’s verdict,...

As I am writing these lines at the end of November, the county and city of Passau (where I am from) is putting up more refugees than whole countries...

In the run-up to this fall’s Synod on the Family, we’ve been hearing a lot from the German bishops. They argue that church teaching and discipline must be informed...