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
The chairman of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development has joined the chairman of the California Catholic Conference’s Environmental Stewardship Committee in lending support to the Save Our Sequoias Act, sponsored by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA). “Giant sequoia trees, an endangered species endemic to the Sierra … Read more
Veteran Vatican journalist Sandro Magister reveals that Vatican officials have regularly “found themselves having to trim and remove at least some excesses, scurrilous expressions, gutter talk.” Vatican offices no longer provide transcripts of the Pope’s unscripted remarks, Magister reports. “Even the secretariat of state has for some time felt duty bound to put up a … Read more
75% of Catholics back same-sex marriage. The Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Survey has found that 75% of white Catholics, 75% of Hispanic Catholics, and 76% of other Catholics of color support same-sex marriage. Overall, 69% of Americans support same-sex marriage. According to the survey, “10% of Americans identify as LGBTQ, including 3% who … 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
Archbishop Joseph Naumann of Kansas City (KS) has joined Archbishop Samuel Aquila of Denver in critiquing Cardinal Robert McElroy’s recent call for “radical inclusion”—a call that includes a change in the Church’s teaching, rooted in the New Testament, on non-reception of Holy Communion for those who have not repented of mortal sins against the Sixth … Read more
Concluding canonical proceedings initiated in 2016, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith has consigned Msgr. Tony Anatrella, a prominent priest-psychotherapist, to a life of prayer, the Archdiocese of Paris announced on January 17. The 81-year-old priest, who was accused of sexually abusing patients during psychotherapy, is barred from hearing confessions and celebrating Mass … Read more