Catholics love the pope, want to love the pope, and Francis deserves their love and fidelity.
But to the degree Catholics also really know their faith, love the Church, and seek to live her teachings, many are also increasingly uneasy. Continue Reading »
The suffering of those who feel themselves to be transsexual can be so great—to the point of making them suicidal—that from the perspective of the Church one can hardly categorically forbid surgical and hormonal measures to reduce their suffering, as a last resort after attempting other measures. The proscription of self-mutilation must here be weighed against the good of reducing suffering. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 12. Also featuring: Pope Francis’s failure and Bob Dylan’s Nobel. Continue Reading »
Any sort of “creeping infallibility” that would attach the same level of authority to every papal utterance or document must be avoided. To fail to draw appropriate distinctions—whether between binding and non-binding documents of the ordinary magisterium, or between the development and the evolution of doctrine—is to dim the light of the Petrine ministry and impoverish the faithful. Continue Reading »
Will Catholics uphold the Church's teaching that the divorced and remarried cannot be admitted to communion, or will they reject it? Pope Francis has brought this question before the Church, though he refuses to formulate it so starkly. Continue Reading »
In going to Lund to participate with Lutherans in a joint commemoration of the Reformation, Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his two papal predecessors, both of whom were deeply committed to the ecumenical pathway set forth in the documents of Vatican II. Continue Reading »
The real problem with the Argentine norms is their deviation from this larger and more fundamental principle: that grace truly sanctifies and liberates, and that baptized Christians are always free to fulfill the moral law, even when they fail to do so. Jesus Christ holds us to this standard in the Gospel. It is presumptuous of Francis—however benign his intentions—to decide that his version of “mercy” trumps that given by God himself. Continue Reading »
The conversation on Amoris Laetitia continues. All the language used by Francis of “integrating” the remarried into the Church originates in the reforms of Pope John Paul II. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 7. Also featuring: The Hamilton Debate and the Marquis de Lafayette’s “Guns and Ships.” Continue Reading »
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