This past week has been incredibly busy for Church news. There is a definitive sense that the Francis agenda has shifted, once again, into a higher gear. We didn’t have the time to cover all the stories of relevance over the past week, so here’s a top-level recap of what’s been happening, sorted by day.…
Two years ago, when this story came out, I asked some friends and fellow journalists, “Is this the trigger-pull on Pell?” At the time, of course, his name wasn’t even being mentioned. But as the events unfolded that would later be referred to as “Vatileaks II,” media reports of new allegations of financial mismanagement at the Vatican left…
Rumors of Cardinal Gerhard Müller’s impending departure as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith are nothing new. But last week, a new story hit the radar, largely-unnoticed in the English-speaking world. The Argentinian newspaper Clarín ran a report saying that Pope Francis planned to take advantage of the looming July 2 deadline on Müller’s five-year mandate…
In our recent podcast, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski mentioned that his latest book, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness would soon be available. And now it is. Subtitled, Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of the Ages, the book will focus, as you might expect, on the importance of the Traditional Latin Mass in the life of faith. From the…
Image: Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library – by Michael Osmanda (CC) Over the past few days, as I’ve worked on this piece, I’ve learned a lot about the Church’s magisterial office. Perhaps it would be better to say I learned how much I don’t know. As I mentioned in the article linked above. I’m…
Today being the Feast of the Sacred Heart, one of the things I absolutely love is coming across vintage holy cards from the good old days of Catholicism. Among the very best of these images are those dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. I had a folder full of these images on my computer,…
Among the more controversial paragraphs from Chapter 8 of Amoris Laetitia (AL), 298 seems to be a real ideological Rorschach test. Some people see the problem with it, and some don’t (or choose not to). Since it has come up several times in various online discussion, I’d like to try to break it down in the hopes…
I apologize for disappearing the past couple days. It’s rare for us to go 48 hours without a post. I spent most of the day Tuesday writing the piece about rediscovering the “why” of Catholicism. First of all, I wanted to thank you all, again, for your incredible kindness. I don’t think I’ve ever heard more…
Earlier this week, papal biographer and Crux contributing editor Austen Ivereigh fired off a bravado-laden tweet about Amoris Laetitia (AL) and the corresponding dubia: Naturally, the pope won’t answer the so-called dubia; they seek to overthrow the fruit of the HS in two synods & a major papal document. — Austen Ivereigh (@austeni) June 20,…
Image: Sir Ernest Shackleton’s ship Endurance, trapped in ice. (1915) What is Catholicism’s “Why”? On my morning walk today, I was listening to an audiobook called Start With Why, by Simon Sinek. The book’s fundamental premise is that what you do in any given project or organization do is far less important than why you do it. Your why is…
Earlier today, a letter emerged on Settimo cielo, the blog of Sandro Magister. It is claimed to have been written by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, one of the four so-called Dubia Cardinals, on behalf of all four of those prelates who had requested clarity from the pope on specific points of confusion arising from the post-synodal apostolic exhortation…
