Note: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s brief letter to German priests, which was released last week, has generated a flood of commentary, both because it was unexpected from a figure who has maintained almost total silence since his resignation, and because it presented sharp observations about developments inside and outside the Church that led to the steep […]
David Carlin: What factors divide pro-life from pro-choice Americans? Mostly, it’s the difference between humility and arrogance. This column is about abortion, but it will take a moment or two to get to the point. Please bear with me. If ever there was an obvious example of fallacious reasoning, it’s this: “I am rich, and […]
Brad Miner on a remarkable, if uneven, pro-life movie that makes clear why abortion is “wetwork,” a loan word from the Russian mokroye delo: meaning murder. My anti-abortion views solidified in 1976 when I bought a copy of Esquire magazine. There was something in it by or about George Plimpton that I wanted to read, but thumbing through the […]
David Warren: Religion is what separates America’s political parties. Some on both sides will claim to be devout, but their priorities prove otherwise. Well, if the Trump administration was not in collusion with Russia, with whom WERE they in collusion? My own guess is the voters in the Red States, but I’ve already heard other theories. […]
Randall Smith visited Cuba, a nation with lively nightlife in which daily the people awaken to the dull realities of a failed socialist worker’s “paradise.” I had the privilege of visiting Havana, Cuba, recently. I probably won’t be allowed back anytime soon for reasons that will shortly become clear. While I was there, someone emailed to […]
Fr. Gerald E. Murray: With more work needed, accountability and transparency about sexual offenses by bishops seem to be the new order of the day. The Archdiocese of Baltimore recently announced the finding of credible accusations of sexual abuse of adults committed by two bishops: Michael Bransfield, former bishop of Wheeling-Charleston, WV; and Gordon D. Bennett, retired bishop of […]
Brad Miner on a book by a French author claiming the Vatican is 80% “gay” and asserting the pope needs to change theology because of it. Nonsense. Although there’s nothing in it about Roman weather or the various sites you might like to visit on a trip to the Vatican, French journalist Frédéric Martel’s In the Closet […]
James V. Schall, S.J.: In our brief lives, we decide to accept or reject God’s reason for creating us: to welcome us into the friendship of the Trinity. Scripture and Mass Canon No. 4 speak of a divine plan for Creation, Redemption, and bringing all things to an End Time. Then any pending issues between God, […]
David Carlin writes that, to end confusion in the Church, it would be good if the pope were to restate Catholicism’s immemorial opposition to homosexual activity. Apart from the grace of God, our most urgent need at the moment is a papal encyclical on homosexuality. Failing that, the American Catholic bishops should issue a collective pastoral letter […]
Daniel J. Mahoney on a freedom fighter, soon to be made Venerable, who suffered under Nazis and communists and faithfully triumphed over all. There is not much good news coming out of Rome today. The “Franciscan” Church is marked by immense moral and theological confusion (some of it deliberately sown by the present pontiff) and a […]
Stephen P. White notes a shift away from denying a link between homosexuality and the abuse crisis and towards an attempt to normalize homosexual clergy. Last week’s summit in Rome did not address the problem of clergy harassing and abusing adults. It did not address the issue, which Pope Francis has acknowledged, of gay subcultures among […]
Fr. Carter Griffin: Like bloodletting by medieval doctors, those who would “cure” priest sex abuse by eliminating celibacy deprive grace from holy orders. Many Catholics, even the most faithful, seem to have given up on priestly celibacy. In our post-sexual revolutionary age, many view celibacy as an unhealthy repression of sexual drives, fostering the epidemic […]
Anthony Esolen: We are suffering from cultural dementia, muddied and dulled by the strokes of the modern. It is time, little by little, for recovery. The other day at Thomas More College I had an experience I’d never had, in my thirty-four years of teaching college students. I had stayed in the room after class, […]
Robert Royal: People are happy that McCarrick has finally been defrocked, but now we need to deal with other abusers and enablers. February is not high tourist season in Rome. Skies are gray and temperatures low. St. Peter’s Square is relatively empty. But journalists filled the nearby Press Office earlier this week – more, according […]
Randall Smith: If we want adult men, then we need boys to spend time with responsible, mature adult men, probably working. Those who study “inflected” languages such as Latin soon confront the problem of modifiers. Once you realize that the genitive “Marius” is modifying the nominative “book” (“the book of Marius”) then you must ask whether the […]