You may have noticed that posting has been light this week. I’ve noticed too. What used to take me a few hours to write seems to be taking several days. My reserves are tapped out. Every day is starting to feel like deja vu all over again — the same stories, or some variation on … Read more
On May 17, I published an article in the Italian newspaper La Verità about pope Benedict’s abdication. A few days before, in a renowned Italian geopolitical magazine called Limes, Professor Germano Dottori had argued that Joseph Ratzinger’s 2013 abdication, and the former Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s resignation in 2011, after a financial storm sold … Read more
Author’s Note: The following is largely excerpted from a longer essay that first appeared on OnePeterFive on August 8th, 2014, entitled In Search of The Curé: A Small Pilgrimage to Ars, which tells the story of a pilgrimage I took there in 1999. Unless otherwise noted, the photos below were taken on that journey. Saint … Read more
My article – regarding the dilemma created for Catholic lawyers related to whether or not the local ordinary’s permission is required before seeking a civil divorce – has received a reply from the internet’s pre-eminent canon lawyer, Edward Peters. Since I am not a canon lawyer, I welcome any correction from a competent authority (and blogmeister Dr. … Read more
I was recently asked by a number of people: “When ought one to point out liturgical abuses and endeavor to correct them?” My interlocutors had been confused by a number of partial truths. Let us, then, exclude several erroneous answers. “To correct an abuse, you need to have perfect charity and disinterested motives.” No man … Read more
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. … Read more
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 … Read more
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 … Read more
Bishop Stephan Ackermann of the Diocese of Trier, in Germany, has announced that the diocese will be closing almost all of its parishes. From Gloria.tv: Trier diocese, the oldest in Germany, will dissolve its 903 parishes and reduce them to 35, liberal Bishop Stephan Ackermann (54) explained on Friday during an information meeting of the … Read more
Image courtesy of Edward Pentin. At the Congress of April 22ro, at the Hotel Columbus, Rome, just one block from Vatican City, six lay scholars gathered in order to “make clarity one year after Amoris Laetitia” (“fare chiarezza a un anno da AL”), the papal apostolic exhortation about love and marriage, with particular reference to … Read more
When Fra’ Matthew Festing abdicated his position as Grand Master of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta — at the pope’s direct request — it left many scratching their heads. How could he allow himself to be pushed out so easily? How was it that his earlier resistance to interference in the sovereign order over which … Read more
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