The Slow Road to Catholic Schism

Some years ago, when I was younger and somewhat more excitable, I wrote a series of essays about Pope Francis’s liberalizing efforts, arguing that the supreme pontiff’s choices risked a schism in the Catholic Church. At the time my argument was criticized by Catholics on both sides of the church’s theological-political divides. Liberal Catholics accused me of hysteria, disloyalty … Read more

Sheep Without Shepherds

For ordinary Catholics, the failures of their leaders have created a two-decade test of faith. Here is a striking fact about the Roman Catholic Church in the United States. The sex abuse crisis in the early 2000s, the horrid revelations of predation that began in Boston in 2001, did not have an obvious long-term effect … Read more

The Catholic Church Needs an Inquest into What the Pederast Cardinal’s Colleagues Knew and When

One of the best things that the bishops of the American Catholic Church did during the great wave of sex abuse revelations 16 years ago — and yes, there’s a low bar for “best” — was to establish a National Review Board, staffed by prominent layman, with the authority to commission an independent report on … Read more