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Spiritual Communion

During the Diocletian persecution, a group of North African Christians were brought to trial in Carthage for meeting illegally for worship. When asked why they had persisted in this practice, one replied, “Sine Dominico, non possumus”: “Without this thing of the Lord, we cannot live.” Over . . . . Continue Reading »

Communion for the Great Dismal Swamp

Is it a violence to take the knife to the loaf? This redemptionhas a split crust and is covered in seeds. There is bloodfrom where I dropped the Pyrex bowl and the chippedglass lodged itself between my fingers as I tried to erase the mistake. Between the kneading and the risingI wait for the . . . . Continue Reading »

Against Inevitable Adultery

Stephen Walford's Pope Francis, the Family and Divorce: In Defense of Truth and Mercy experiments with the idea that it is excessive to ask divorced-and-remarried couples to choose between receiving the Eucharist and having sex. Continue Reading »

A Church in Doubt

To Change the Church:  Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism by ross douthat simon and schuster, 256 pages, $26 It is beyond question that the Roman Catholic Church is currently in the throes of one of the greatest crises in its two-millennium history. In human terms, its future might be . . . . Continue Reading »

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