“Gaslighting,” writes Dr. Stephanie Sarkis at Psychology Today, “is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their [sic] reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders.” For…
Just hours ago, new Chicago auxiliary bishop Mark Bartosic arrived unannounced at Resurrection Parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side and told pastor Paul Kalchik that he had just minutes to get his belongings together and vacate the premises, or the police would be called to arrest him for trespassing. Fr. Kalchik was about to perform a…
Although the pope pledged that he would “not say a single word” about the accusation that he was involved in the cover-up of Cardinal McCarrick’s sexual abuse, he seems unable to stop making oblique references to exactly that situation. There has been a pattern – a theme, if you will – that has overtaken the…
In the five years since Pope Benedict XVI resigned, many of the Catholic faithful have expressed a longing for his return. Most were puzzled by his abdication, the reasons for which never seemed entirely clear. Some were hurt and even resented what appeared to be abandonment by their spiritual father. Not a few have speculated,…
Today, Pope Francis had an audience with a globally known figure. It was not Cardinal Burke, one of the four authors of the dubia, who submitted their concerns about the pope’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia exactly two years ago today. (Two of those authors, Cardinal Joachim Meisner and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, did not live to see…
While the eyes of most of the faithful who follow Church news remain fixated on the near-constant drumbeat of new information about Clerical Abuse Scandal 2.0, another papal document has dropped, and in it, another likely time bomb. This morning, Pope Francis issued the Apostolic Constitution Epicopalis Communio (EC) – “Episcopal Communion” – which aims to “reform” the synodal…
It is never a good idea to sign a deal just for the sake of signing a deal The Vatican is set to sign an agreement with China by the end of the month, one that cedes control over the appointment of bishops to Beijing. In return, we are told, Beijing has agreed to recognize…
On September 4, Francesca Fagnano of the Italian Daily Il Fatto Quotidiano (IFQ) published a report discussing a “new bomb” in the Vatican. Her article, excerpts of which were published here, indicated that there is a dossier, similar to that of the disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick, on his former vicar general, auxiliary, and housemate, Cardinal…
Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, the president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), has been accused by two alleged victims of clerical abuse of failing to remove their priest abuser from ministry. The alleged perpetrator, Father Manuel LaRosa-Lopez, was arrested in Conroe, Texas on Tuesday on four counts of indecency…
A report commissioned by the German Bishops’ Conference, known as the “MHG Study,” has been obtained by media outlets Spiegel Online and Die Ziet, and the findings are staggering: between 1946 and 2014, there were a reported 3,677 cases of abuse reported to have been perpetuated by 1,670 clerics in Germany. The majority of victims…
In the summer of 1997, just before I started college, I moved out to live with the family of one of my best friends from high school in northern Idaho. While there, I worked for the family business, which typically involved installing and replacing pumps in residential water wells in homes spread across hundreds of…
