Publication: First Things

Vos Estis Lux Mundi, the new papal directive for handling sex abuse charges, takes a few steps toward reform within the Catholic Church. But the papal document—a motu proprio, carrying the force ...

221 days after Pope Francis accepted Wuerl's resignation, he is officially replaced by Wilton Gregory. Today marks Archbishop Wilton Gregory’s long-awaited arrival in Washington, D.C. But while all eyes and ...

Published a week short of his 92nd birthday, Joseph Ratzinger’s essay on the epidemiology of the clergy sex-abuse crisis vividly illustrated his still-unparalleled capacity to incinerate the brain circuits of ...

Scrutiny continues for the U.S.-based Papal Foundation, amid questions of whether some of its grant activity was motivated by a desire to secure leniency for disgraced former cardinal Theodore McCarrick ...

Your Eminence: I noted with interest your recent announcement of a “binding synodal process” during which the Church in Germany will discuss the celibacy of the Latin-rite Catholic priesthood, the ...

At the heart of the recent Catholic scandals is infidelity—literally the lack of faith. There are priests, including bishops and even cardinals, who do not believe in God, or whose ...

Governor Cuomo’s excommunication should be declared for the good of souls: first of all for his own, but also for the good of those who will otherwise follow him into ...

The current regime in Rome will damage the Catholic Church. Pope ­Francis combines laxity and ruthlessness. His style is casual and approachable; his church politics are cold and cunning. There ...

In late July, I began giving internal diocesan documents to an investigative reporter in my hometown of Buffalo, NY. Three years earlier, Bishop Richard J. Malone had offered me a ...

Dear Eminences and Excellencies, I write to you as a former senior staffer at the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), where I was entrusted with a range of ...

So much for the “new paradigm.” With the Church now mired in its most severe crisis since the Protestant Reformation, the heady talk of last spring now seems as distant ...

We are witnessing the collapse of the episcopal establishment in the United States. In one sense, the Pennsylvania Grand Jury Report tells us nothing we didn’t already know. But it spells things ...

Theodore McCarrick has been stripped of his status as cardinal for pursuing young men throughout his clerical career. “­Uncle Ted” liked to take his “nephews” to bed with him. The ...

The crux of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò's indictment of Pope Francis comes toward the end of his Memorandum: “Francis is abdicating the mandate which Christ gave to Peter to confirm the ...

Will battles erupt within the Catholic hierarchy following allegations by Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò that Pope Francis has long been aware of ex-Cardinal Theodore McCarrick's sexual misconduct? The prospect of open warfare ...

At the heart of the recent Catholic scandals is infidelity—literally the lack of faith. There are priests, including bishops and even cardinals, who do not believe in God, or whose ...

I am the sort of man the Catholic Church says shouldn’t be a priest. I experience what the Vatican calls “deep-seated homosexual tendencies,” which, according to the Church, make me ...

It is time for clergy and laity to begin a movement for the purification of the Church. The shameful sexual sins and crimes of clergy—including cardinals, bishops, and priests—can no ...

Archbishop McCarrick’s predatory career would not have been possible without the culpable silence or active complicity of men at the highest levels of the Church. Revelations of his abuse have ...

On July 28, I sent the letter below to my bishop, the Most Reverend Robert E. Guglielmone of the Diocese of Charleston. In it, I explain that I will no ...

What did the American bishops know, and when did they know it? This is the question everyone is asking in the wake of public revelations that Cardinal Theodore McCarrick had, ...