It is integral to human nature: our focus is principally determined by what we are looking at. When we speak to others, we make eye contact. When we move from place to place, we point ourselves in that direction. Pilots face forward. Drivers too. Surgeons don’t stare at the back wall of an operating theater. I’ve yet to…
Last week saw the release of an important interview (PDF link) given by Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna and one of Pope Francis’ most trusted theological advisers and spokesmen, to the Roman Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica. The topic was the Apostolic Exhortation Amoris Laetitia (AL): This interview has already made waves round the world,…
As most internet-connected Catholics are now aware, Cardinal Robert Sarah recently encouraged priets and bishops to begin celebrating Mass ad orientem. He also specifically suggested that they begin this Advent. This is an excellent proposal. And judging from the backlash it has already inspired, I think it’s important that we communicate to our bishops our…
When it comes to fatherhood, I’m a bit of a mess. Despite all the opportunities seven children provide, I’ve realized I’m not very good at it. Despite the feelings of paternal affection I have for my amazing children, I struggle immensely in my attempts to understand, on a practical level, what they truly require from me. I…
In a response to The Remnant’s Chris Ferrara (“An Open Letter to Bishop Athanasius Schneider“; May 10, 2016), Bishop Athanasius Schneider has not backed off of his existing criticism of Amoris Laetitia, but rather, has encouraged further resistance to it: In using our reason and in respecting the proper sense of the words, one can hardly interpret some expressions…
Members of Women’s Ordination Worldwide — that’s the name of a group promoting the “ordination” of women — have been in Rome this week, where rather than being shunned, as is appropriate, they were granted an audience with an official from the Vatican Secretariat of State. Hearing their appeal on behalf of some 150 women who have been “ordained”…
Editor’s note: the following is a guest essay submitted by a reader who wishes to remain anonymous. We have agreed to publish it here in the hopes of generating a fruitful discussion. In my efforts to draw friends into my local Latin Mass community, I’ve noticed a curious pattern in the way they evaluate their first…
In every age, the Church deals with issues and pastoral situations so murky that a solution to a member’s situation may seem impossible. In the modern age, very few Catholics understand the importance of the Church’s precepts. These precepts bind each member of the Church to certain obligations in order to direct the lives of…
While I now try to keep a policy of avoiding every controversy from Rome, the hubbub on “deaconesses” is too great a temptation to resist and provides an opportunity for a solid catechizing moment, speaking as someone who has felt called to the order of deacon for eight years. What is a deaconess? Is a…
In our year-long course on music at Wyoming Catholic College, students read and discuss a chapter from Joseph Ratzinger’s book A New Song for the Lord, “The Image of the World and of Human Beings in the Liturgy and Its Expression in Church Music,”1 In Joseph Ratzinger, A New Song for the Lord, trans. Martha…
At a meeting to discuss the apostolic exhoration Amoris Laetitia, Archbishop Bruno Forte revealed new insights into the mind of Pope Francis on one of the most controversial issues facing the Church: communion for the divorced and “remarried.” Forte was the man personally chosen by Pope Francis as the Special Secretary for the synods on marriage…
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