Search or Browse Commentary
All Catholic commentary from October 2014
If Catholic priests never preach on sexual morality, be suspicious
So now we know why Bishop Kieran Conry never preached about sexual morality. What about the umpteen other bishops and priests who never come near the subject? Do they, too, have something to hide? Think about it. What are the possible reasons for a pastor’s silence on issues of sexual...
Using the figure of Pope Francis for evangelization
Pope Francis is often illuminating, yet sometimes frustrating. His words and actions are never bland; in fact, they are nearly always pointed. This accounts for the continued preoccupation of the media, and for the enormous attention he has garnered from Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Those...
The myth of religious violence
At CatholicCulture.org we grow weary of hearing so many people who should know better praise our secular institutions for saving us from the violence inherent in religious faith. Nonetheless, we “soldier” on, ministering to ignorance. After all, it doesn’t take more than a...
Does the Kasper proposal undermine the New Covenant?
In yesterday’s City Gates piece, Using the figure of Pope Francis for evangelization, I alluded to aspects of Pope Francis’ approach which keep us off balance and raise questions in our minds. But I also wrote that “Catholic doctrine is deep in his bones”. As Francis...
How ESPN makes Uncle Screwtape happy
Anthony Esolen is always worth reading. He hits nails on heads. And he comes at his targets from unexpected angles, so that the point is pounded home almost before the reader can see where it’s going. A professional football star is charged with subjecting his child to pitiless physical...
Why the Wesolowski trial belongs at the Vatican
Suppose you were arrested and told that you’d be facing criminal charges that could lead to a 12-year prison sentence. Would you say that the police were “sheltering” you? I doubt it. Yet a Boston Globe editorial complains that the Vatican is sheltering Jozef Wesolowski, the defrocked...
While his cause is stalled: Remembering Bishop Fulton Sheen
The cause for beatification of the Venerable Bishop Fulton Sheen is on hold because of a dispute over Sheen’s body between the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Born in 1895, Sheen was ordained for the Diocese of Peoria in 1919, and it is Peoria that has taken...
The Month of the Rosary: Working on our Relationships
October 7 marks the Memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary, the centerpiece feast for the month dedicated to the rosary. After the Liturgy, the rosary is esteemed as one of the greatest prayers. Volumes have been written singing the praises of the rosary, including many writings from the hands of...
What’s wrong with this Synod, I: Shuffling the deck chairs
[This is the first in a series of essays on the current Synod of Bishops, dedicated to the family. I should begin with the caveat that my comments are based on public reports from the Synod. The actual discussions may be developing along different lines. I hope so.] Does the Synod of Bishops...
It's safe. Perfectly safe. No need to mention it.
Researchers at the University of Adelaide, Australia, are questioning whether estrogen in the environment might account for a rise in obesity and a drop in sperm count among men in affluent countries. The Daily Mail helpfully informs us that chemicals similar to estrogen can be found in PVC pipes...
Pastoral-needs quiz
Among the following groups, which does NOT require special pastoral attention and a warm welcome into every Catholic parish? active homosexuals cohabiting couples couples who are divorced and remarried (no annulment) daily communicants who do not contribute to the Bishop’s...
What's wrong with this Synod, II: Debate is free, open (and censored)
Speaking to the Synod of Bishops on its first day of discussions, Pope Francis urged the participants to speak out boldly, “without human respect, without timidity.” The secretary-general of the Synod, Cardinal Lorenzo Baldisseri, echoed that message, saying that “discussion at the Synod is to...
A chaotic synod? Reason one: The nature of synods
It is very difficult to assess what is in the minds of most bishops as they work behind the scenes at the current Synod on the Family. The reports of the proceedings are very scanty, and often couched in terms that can be interpreted in multiple ways. A perceived lack of direction may be more...
A chaotic synod? Reason two: The Church in our time
The second reason the current Synod on the Family will inevitably seem chaotic is the unique situation of the Church in this period of history. In my last installment, I explained that a certain degree of chaos is integral to the synodal process, and in the third and final installment I will...
Relevancy of Current Events and the Liturgical Year
The current era is not lacking in crises, breaking news, conflicting news reports and confusing reports from Rome. Catholic Culture and CWNews provide accurate news reports and opinion pieces giving balance and insight with a Catholic perspective on these existing and developing issues, such as...
What's wrong with this Synod, III: First World problems
Perhaps now is as good a time as any for a reminder that the official topic for this extraordinary session of the Synod of Bishops is: “The Pastoral Challenges of the Family in the Context of Evangelization.” During these last 10 days we have heard a great deal about divorce,...
The trouble with 'gradualism'
Pope Francis has compared the Church to a field hospital, a place where wounded people come to be healed. Let’s apply that very useful metaphor to the relatio post disceptationem, the interim document from the Synod of Bishops, and in particular to that document’s call for...
A chaotic synod? Reason three: Marriage itself
In my last installment, I concluded that we must still consider why marriage presents the Synod on the Family with the most difficult topic of all. In reflecting on the distinctive nature of marriage, we will soon see more than ever why we should expect the synodal process, stretching over a year...
A Manichean Luther
An in-depth article at Unam Sanctam Catholicam takes a look at modern scholarship which reveals that Martin Luther's theology was far less orthodox than is commonly believed: For most of post-Reformation history, it has been axiomatic in theological histories of the controversy to propose...
Feastday Highlights: St. Luke, Evangelist and Artist
The month of October is filled with many memorials and optional memorials of saints, but the only two feasts during the month are for St. Luke, Evangelist on October 18, and ten days later Saints Simon and Jude, apostles. Not much is known about St. Luke's life, nor his death. Tradition...
The Synod: Is the sky falling?
I confess I marvel at how many people assume that conflict among bishops at the Synod on the Family must mean that the sky is falling. If one side or the other in a particular dispute employs strategies that seem more appropriate to politics, the fear is that they are evil geniuses destroying the...
No, mainstream religious orders aren't attracting vocations as fast as younger traditional orders
Let’s say you have two children. One of them, a little toddler, has put on 5 pounds in the past month. The other, a teenage boy, has also gained 5 pounds over the same span of time. Which one would you say is growing faster? The toddler, obviously. It’s not surprising when a healthy...
What's wrong with this Synod, IV: Unprepared for marriage
As the Synod of Bishops continues to focus on troubled marital (and non-marital) relationships, several prominent prelates have speculated that there are probably many Catholics living in marital unions that would, on close inspection, be recognized as invalid. That suggestion cannot be...
Cardinal Kasper's nose is growing again
First Cardinal Kasper claimed that he had never made those shocking comments dismissing the views of African bishops. Then we heard the conversation. Now the cardinal says that he won’t comment on the taped interview because it was unauthorized and journalist Edward Pentin had not introduced...
When Catholics are less Catholic than non-Catholics
The Catholic Church does not settle doctrinal questions by majority vote. And since surveys of Catholic opinion usually record the answers of any respondents who identify themselves as Catholics, we don’t have many reliable indications of what faithful, practicing Catholics think, anyway....
Cardinal Kasper's unsubtle threat
As I mentioned last week, Cardinal Kasper generally assumes—and rightly so-- that journalists will sympathize with his campaign to change Church teaching. So it would be foolish to ignore his insistence that his embarrassment at the Synod was caused by a dark conspiracy , and now...
A chaotic synod? Not in its results
Those who read between the lines in both Phil Lawler’s and my own series of commentaries on the recent Synod could probably tell that neither of us was particularly worried in the long run. Phil strove to point out aspects of the synodal process which were counterproductive, and I tried to...
Has the Vatican finally discovered how to avoid inaccurate English translations?
The good news: Nobody has complained about inaccuracies in the English-language translation of the Synod's final document. The bad news: That's because the Vatican hasn't yet issued an English...
Ignatius Press into the Breach: Trumping the Kasper Proposal
Ignatius Press deserves the gratitude of English-speaking Catholics for its publication of three books in direct response to the Kasper Proposal, as part of the discussion encouraged by Pope Francis leading up to the synods on the family. These books succeed in refuting the arguments in favor of...
Do not confuse sacramental discipline and Catholic doctrine.
In the aftermath of the push for the Kasper Proposal at the 2014 Synod on the Family, some Catholics have fallen into the fairly serious error of confusing sacramental discipline with Catholic doctrine. It is Catholic doctrine, for example, that valid sacramental marriage is indissoluble,...
The Pope is not the problem
Thoroughly rattled by the stories that emerged from the October meeting of the Synod of Bishops, many faithful Catholics are now worried that Pope Francis is leading the Church in a dangerous direction—and perhaps even doing so intentionally. Their fears are understandable, in light of some...
Is Cardinal Kasper losing his grip?
It may well be that the discussion of the Kasper Proposal will continue all through the coming year up to and including the 2015 Synod on the Family. I have expressed the optimistic hope that the proposal is actually now dead, except in the media, but time will tell. Meanwhile, one wonders whether...
Could respect for the papacy mean resisting the Pope?
A challenging column by Ross Douthat in the New York Times prompts me to clarify my thoughts on the recent Synod and especially the Pope’s role in the October session. Douthat kindly links to my piece, “The Pope is not the problem,” as representative of efforts by...
Saving the 21st century?
The title screams but the book is pretty good. I’m referring to The Race to Save our Century by Jason Scott Jones and John Zmirak. Recently published by Crossroad, this book explores (as the subtitle puts it) “five core principles to promote peace, freedom, and a culture of...
Church Fathers: St. Clement of Rome
Sometime towards the end of the first century A.D., two men made a journey from Rome to Corinth. Claudius Ephebus and Valerius Vito, a pair of freed slaves from the household of the deceased Emperor Claudius, carried a letter to the Christian community in Corinth from Bishop Clement of Rome...
Does the Kasper Proposal make Pope Francis a heretic? Invalid marriages and mortal sin
I have been, from the first, among those who have opposed the Kasper Proposal. My first commentary on the subject suggested that Cardinal Kasper’s emphasis on moral principles as mere ideals seemed to presuppose a world without grace (see Does the Kasper proposal undermine the New...
Clarifying what it might mean for a pope to wish to change Catholic doctrine
On Saturday, Phil Lawler wrote about the role of the faithful if Pope Francis should indicate a desire to “change the Church’s teaching” (see Could respect for the papacy mean resisting the Pope?). This was designed to clarify his position in response to a column in the New York...
How not to be persuasive
When I’m not busy reading and writing about Catholic affairs, I spend some of free time on local civic affairs. Recently a heated controversy has broken out in the town where we live, and I have played a small role in trying to resolve it. I’ll spare you the details, which are complicated and not...
And here's another very old story: the secular media don't understand Catholic affairs
In Time magazine (of all places), Elizabeth Dias scolds the many media outlets that gave top billing to the statement by Pope Francis that the theory of scientific evolution is compatible with Christianity. That might have been news 65 years ago, Diaz observes. But since Pope Francis was echoing...
Contentious Spirits, Beware!
For many years, as a much younger man, I far too frequently interpreted my tendency to criticize and complain about others as evidence of my great zeal for the truth. I am well aware of the huge shock this admission will produce in those who read my work now. All right-thinking readers today...
Want more commentary? Visit the Archives.
