Anyone who has had to wrestle with grave questions on morality, theology, or vocation knows how stressful it can be. The regular ways of Providence, which permit that we undergo mental and emotional agony in order to arrive at a satisfactory possession of virtue or knowledge, can be rough. Wrestling with Providence feels like being … Read more
What if a man, a man of eminence and of great and well-credentialed education, a man of authority, a priest, even, a man who has the ear of the Pope, told you that sometimes 2 + 2 = 5? Would this man by virtue of his lofty position be correct? What if a small child, … Read more
Maike Hickson and Josef Seifert offer personal reflections on the late Cardinal Carlo Caffarra.
Editor’s note: As we continue our exploration of the Church’s magisterium in light of some more recently troubling papal documents, we are pleased to introduce this work from Dr. des. John P. Joy. Joy wrote his doctoral dissertation in dogmatic theology “On the Ordinary and Extraordinary Magisterium from Joseph Kleutgen to the Second Vatican Council” … Read more
Image: Sistine Hall of the Vatican Library – by Michael Osmanda (CC) Over the past few days, as I’ve worked on this piece, I’ve learned a lot about the Church’s magisterial office. Perhaps it would be better to say I learned how much I don’t know. As I mentioned in the article linked above. I’m … Read more
(Image: Screenshot of the papal interview as it appears [with Google translation] in Zeit Online) Today, 8 March, the German newspaper Die Zeit published an interview with Pope Francis which was conducted at the end of February at the pope’s residence Casa Santa Marta in Rome. In this somewhat lengthy interview, the pope speaks about … Read more
A shocking new piece of information comes to us from Germany, from the website Katholisches.info, which is principally run by the well-informed Vatican expert and loyal Catholic layman, Giuseppe Nardi. He reported on 18 November – the day before the controversial “non-existent” Consistory of Cardinals in Rome – that Pope Francis has decided to re-write the … Read more
Many of us are suffering right now. It’s recent and sudden, and happening in ways we never anticipated or imagined. Steve Skojec has heroically shared with us his incomprehensible crosses. The family discord, this falling away between family members and among otherwise close friends, the many cancers, diseases, catastrophic accidents and job losses, the persecutions, both … Read more
On 2 September, LifeSiteNews published a trenchant critique of the new Vatican Sexual Education Program. The author of this critique, Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons, the director of the Institute for Marital Healing outside Philadelphia, strongly opposes this new program which he calls “pornographic” and a “threat to the youth.” He goes so far as to claim that … Read more
While it was Pope Francis’ 17 May 2016 interview with the French journal La Croix that led to a strong critique of the pope as a “relativizer” by German journalist Dr. Alexander Kissler, it was Francis’ recent comments about the invalidity of a vast majority of Catholic marriages that provoked another well-known German journalist – Christian Geyer – to write his … Read more
Yesterday, we broke the story that Pope Francis had made comments on his plane presser (returning from Greece) indicating with a simple, emphatic affirmative that yes, there were concrete changes to the way the Church is going to deal with the divorced and remarried following the exhortation. Some have (predictably) disputed those claims. There is … Read more