Catholicism comes without an escape clause: Once a person is baptized or received into the Church, there is no getting out. We blaspheme when we presume to undo the consequences of baptism by differentiating between “so-called Catholics” and the genuine article. Continue Reading »
The rightful place of the Catholic is always alongside the poor, the marginalized, the excluded—all the more so because Catholics have traditionally been overrepresented among the poor, the marginalized, and the excluded in American society. Continue Reading »
In the early Church, witnesses to the faith who had been persecuted and tortured but not killed were known as “martyr-confessors.” It’s been one of the great privileges of my life to have known such men and women: Czech priests who spent years as slave laborers in uranium mines; Lithuanian . . . . Continue Reading »
Sitting at a high-top table in Reading Terminal Market in Philadelphia, just a few blocks away from Pope Francis and the World Meeting of Families, a young priest friend leaned in and asked me what I wish had been different about my marriage prep. “Having been through it recently, what would you . . . . Continue Reading »
The annual “Status of Global Christianity” survey published by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a cornucopia of numbers: Some are encouraging; others are discouraging; many of them are important for grasping the nature of this particular moment in Christian history. Continue Reading »
When Fr. Richard McBrienauthor of twenty-five books, syndicated columnist, and previous chairman of the theology department at Notre Damedied last month after a long illness, the Catholic world lost one of its best-known scholars and commentators. Continue Reading »
The bilateral diplomacy of the Holy See is unique in world affairs, in that it has little or nothing to do with the things with which diplomats typically occupy their time: trade issues, security matters, visas. Rather, the reason why the Vatican engages in bilateral diplomacy is to secure the freedom of the Catholic Church to be itself in the countries with which the Holy See has, or wishes to have, diplomatic relations. To be sure, in crisis situations, the Holy See’s representative in a crumbling or violence-ridden state can also serve as an honest broker amidst contending local parties, or a voice for persecuted Catholic communities, or a channel for humanitarian assistance. But whatever the situation, the first task of the pope’s representative to another sovereignty is to help maintain free space for the Church’s evangelical, sacramental, educational and charitable missions, all of which are essential to what it means to be “the Catholic Church” in any human situation. Continue Reading »
In his Washington Post column today, E.J. Dionne pays tribute to the late Mario Cuomo. It is right and fitting that he should do so, since what Cuomo was to politics, Dionne is to journalism: a man constantly reminding us he is Catholic while he counsels and supports the violation of central tenets of the faith, at least where one of those central tenetsthe sanctity of lifeis concerned. Continue Reading »
She was called “La Popessa,” depicted as the iron lady of the Vatican, and said to have wielded more power in Rome than any woman in centuries. She is the subject of numerous books, movies, and even a musicaloften more fiction than fact. But the real story of Mother Pascalina Lehnertthe life-long assistant to Pope Pius XIIis still not widely known. Now, thanks to the English translation of her memoirs, His Humble Servant, she speaks for herself, to a far larger audience. Continue Reading »