For the last two years, the Vatican has trotted out its newly-minted expert and jack-of-all-trades, Jeffrey Sachs. Embracing the image of the stereotypical member of the Ivy League elite, the Harvard-educated economist-turned-polymath and director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University propounds on every topic that passes his gaze – from poverty to global warming, climate change to Thomas…
Last Friday, the headlines from Rome screamed, “Archbishop Cupich lays out pathway for gay couples to receive Communion at Vatican press scrum,” a story so ribald it reads like something out of the heretical works of the Marquis de Sade. Archbishop Cupich of Chicago laid the whopper on the tableau of reporters that he can see a day when…
Forty years ago the regime of Giovanni Battista Montini, Pope Paul VI, began to reveal itself. Mythology had it that he was a good man who lost control, and that the disaster was caused by everything except his mistakes and pusillanimity. Msgr. F. D. Cohalan, a noted New York churchman and historian, contended there was…
A person who still has the indissoluble sacramental marriage bond and who in spite of this lives in a stable marital cohabitation with another person, by Divine law cannot be admitted to Holy Communion. To do so would be a public statement by the Church nefariously legitimizing a denial of the indissolubility of the Christian…
Editor’s note: we originally published this piece on Nov 5, 2014. We are re-printing today because it is as relevant, if not moreso, than it was a year ago. In an interview with the Polish magazine Polonia Christiana, Bishop Athanasius Schneider, Auxiliary of the Archdiocese of Saint Mary in Astana, Kazakhstan, offers strong criticism of the proceedings of…
It’s time to make a stand. Dear 1P5 Readers, I’m sure that you are as concerned about the Synod on the Family as I am. As the evidence mounts that the Synod’s outcome has been pre-determined, I have joined a number of other concerned Catholics in writing an open letter. In it, we request that those…
The first week of the Synod on the Family is over. Much has transpired in one week and it is easy for noteworthy events to get lost in the barrage of news reports issued over the last week. For this reason, it might be helpful to recap the highlights of what has transpired. The Erdo…
At St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Philadelphia. Pope Francis addressed the victims of clerical sex abuse in no uncertain terms: I carry in my heart the stories, the suffering and the pain of the minors who were sexually abused by priests. I’m overwhelmed by the shame that people who were in charge of caring for…
We enter the church just moments before things begin, the altar boys and thurifer standing in anticipation in the small narthex, a faint wisp of incense rising through cross-shaped slits in burnished bronze. In hushed voices, we urge our small children forward, directing them to a pew near the back, in order to be able…
The following is a lecture given by artist Daniel Mitsui on 14 September 2015, to open an exhibit of his artwork at Franciscan University of Steubenville. INVENTION and EXALTATION I wish you a very happy feast. This is a special day dedicated to the Holy Cross, one of two in Catholic tradition. The names of…
The Rosary is arguably the most recognizable Catholic devotion. Sadly, it is a devotion that has fallen out of fashion for many Catholics. This is deeply unfortunate, as the Rosary is one of the most powerful weapons in our arsenal for spiritual warfare and one of the greatest aids in the pursuit of a fruitful spiritual…
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