Last year, the US bishops’ conference launched a four-year program aimed at a National Eucharistic Revival, designed to “restore understanding and devotion to this great mystery here in the United States” with a budget of $28 million. Catholic commentator Phil Lawler has recently suggested 14 practical steps the bishops could take to accomplish this objective … Read more
Have you noticed that in recent years, before each meeting of the Synod of Bishops, public attention tends to fixate on one very specific topic? In 2015, before the Synod on the Family, everyone was asking whether Catholics who are divorced and illicitly remarried should receive the Eucharist. In 2019, before the Amazon Synod, the … Read more
Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg made the astonishing suggestion that early Christians did not understand what homosexuality was, in a revealing interview with a Croatian journalist. Questioned about his statement in February 2022 that the Catechism’s teaching on homosexuality is “false,” Cardinal Hollerich said: When the Church doctrine was being created, the concept of homosexuality … Read more
From my personal perspective, the this week’s stunning First Things essay by Bishop Paprocki is easily the most important news story of the young year: a development that I have anxiously awaited for years. For far too long our bishops have papered over their differences, allowing confusion and consternation to fester among the faithful, in … Read more
Taking his cue from Cardinal McElroy—and ignoring the strong cautions from Archbishop Aquila and Archbishop Naumann, among others—Chicago’s Cardinal Blase Cupich has written a column in his archdiocesan newspaper calling for full inclusion of active homosexuals in the life of the Church. Actually the cardinal does not mention homosexuality in his column. But anyone conversant … Read more
Did you participate in the diocesan discussions leading up to next year’s Synod of Bishops? Neither did I. Were you invited to discussion groups and listening sessions? Neither was I. Oh, there were official announcements, no doubt, in diocesan newspapers and even parish bulletins. But like the vast majority of American Catholics, I paid them … Read more
Canon lawyers disagree on whether Church law requires other bishops to honor Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone’s “Notification” barring Speaker Nancy Pelosi from Communion. But the logic of the matter is unavoidable. Other prelates—most notably Washington’s Cardinal Wilton Gregory—cannot ignore the challenge. The Washington archdiocese, in its first effort to avoid the question, issued an official statement: … Read more
Up until recently, our bishops have apparently deemed it very important to avoid any public discord. But the façade of unity is disintegrating. And that, I suggest, is cause for celebration. There have always been disagreements among Catholic bishops. Intelligent men will always have different perspectives. Seeing things differently, they can discuss and debate and … Read more
One Vatican office spying on another? It isn’t edifying. But read between the lines of the latest report emerging from the Vatican finance trial, and you can begin to see the outline of a larger scandal. The Pillar site, which continues to set the pace for coverage of the financial shenanigans, broke the story for … Read more
Insofar as Traditionis Custodes provides any explanation for its open hostility toward Catholic traditionalists, that explanation lies in the claim that traditionalist communities have caused divisions within the Church. Therefore, Pope Francis suggests (and the Congregation for Divine Worship even more sternly insists) traditionalism must be suppressed. That logic is backward. It was not the … Read more