Recently, my grandson Thomas received his first Holy Communion at a parish I have visited only a few times. My wife and I assist at Mass at a different parish, in part because it offers the traditional Latin Mass. The day after Thomas’s first Holy Communion at the Novus Ordo church, some children at our…
A new papal motu proprio letter, Vos Estis Lux Mundi, makes some important changes to the way the Vatican handles clerical sexual abuse. The plan, promulgated today, goes into effect on June 1, 2019. “The crimes of sexual abuse,” the letter reads, “offend Our Lord, cause physical, psychological and spiritual damage to the victims and…
Reactions to the Open Letter accusing Pope Francis of holding seven heretical propositions — a letter that now bears the signatures of 81 clergy, religious, and scholars — have ranged from strong support (Zmirak, Coulombe, Verrecchio) to sympathetic critiques (Lawler, Feser, Weinandy, Shaw) to undisguised hostility (Akin, Armstrong, Condon, most media outlets). The authors in…
There have been a number of developments on the Open Letter accusing the pope of heresy since I first summarized it in this space on April 30. The first of these is that the number of scholars who have signed it has gone from 15 to 81. (At LifeSite, Maike Hickson has been updating the list…
We are in the midst of the Easter season: He is Risen, alleluia, alleluia! We read in the book of the Apocalypse that Jesus Christ is “the first and the last” (22:13). Indeed, He is first in the eternal sense, but He is also first in what we as Christians are to value. We know…
Is it possible to take private beliefs a step further when you’re 63, a bit shy, and have a head full of gray hair? Is it possible to protest in front of an abortion clinic and actually save a life on an ordinary Monday morning? “Yes it is,” says Judy.* Here’s her story, as told…
Sanctification: Neither as easy nor as impractical as we think Many people are wondering how to handle the current crisis in the Church, what they can do in practical terms, in a situation that seems increasingly apocalyptic and completely out of their hands. We’ve been dissatisfied with the answers we’ve had so far from the…
In the seemingly interminable war between Catholics and Pope Francis, another salvo has been fired. This time, it lands a bit closer to the target. In a 20-page open letter addressed not to the pope, but to the bishops of the Church, 19 Catholic scholars, some of them clergy, state that they “accuse Pope Francis of…
“Clericalism” has been a favorite buzzword of Pope Francis almost since the inception of his pontificate. He wields it like a Swiss army knife, applying it to every problem he doesn’t have a sufficient alternative explanation for. (There’s also not a little irony in his use of the term, but that’s par for the course.) Most recently, he…
We heard recently from two disparate Catholic authors who surprisingly agree about the current condition of the Catholic Church. One of the authors is Ross Douthat, self-described conservative Catholic and author of To Change the Church (subtitled “Pope Francis and the Future of Catholicism”), a recent book that explores “what exactly constitutes the Catholic core.”…
Summer Theology Program 2019 St. Thomas’ Commentary on the Epistle of St. Paul to the Galatians August 12–16 in Wausau, Wisconsin Hosted by the St. Albert the Great Center for Scholastic Studies, in collaboration with The Aquinas Institute for the Study of Sacred Doctrine, and the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. The annual…
