Catholic groups and organizations are striving to not only acknowledge the sins of the past but also do something to atone for them. Network, a Catholic social justice lobby, issued a Lenten study guide last year, “Recommit to Racial Justice.” It has proved so popular that more copies of the six-week program need to be Read more
A new document by Pope Francis slams countries and companies exploiting the Amazon region and calls on the Catholic Church to find new paths and methods to minister to its indigenous people. But those new paths do not include the ordination of married men to the priesthood in the region. The document, called “Querida Amazonia” Read more
In 2016, Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin by fewer than 23,000 votes. This time, a group that favours Trump is trying to ensure a repeat victory. And it’s using something called geofencing to find Catholics at Mass. For All Tech Considered, NPR’s Audie Cornish spoke with Heidi Schlumpf of the National Catholic Reporter Read more
In a new book, “From the Depths of Our Hearts: Priesthood, Celibacy, and the Crisis of the Catholic Church,” Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and his co-author, conservative Cardinal Robert Sarah, strongly defend celibacy, arguing that priesthood and sexual abstinence are integrally linked together. He argues that even married priests were supposed to abstain from sex Read more
Each week NZ Herald’s Eleanor Black invites someone to reflect on taking an exit – from a job, a lover, a lifestyle. This week, Eli Matthewson talks about leaving the church. What church did you grow up in? It was Presbyterian by name but I don’t know if it was fully Presbyterian by how it Read more
It was only a matter of time. Pope Francis has finally lost his patience and gotten rid of Archbishop Georg Ganswein as prefect of the Papal Household. According to the German weekly, Die Tagespost, the pope put the 63-year-old on “indefinite administrative leave.” He did so, the paper said, because of the German prefect’s involvement Read more
Most parish bulletins are ugly. This has been obvious for some time: In 2015, Catholic Creatives, an online community of artists and entrepreneurs, met specifically to diagnose the issue of important information getting lost in bad bulletin design. A parish bulletin redesign does not have to be a daunting task. I combed through dozens of Read more
No more New Year resolutions for me! The failure rate is too high. The only resolution I kept, was giving up smoking in 1976, and that was more about health than the dare. These days, I’m aware that our measurements of time are our way of managing incarnation on earth. We place a grid over Read more
It’s that special time of the year again for New Zealand kids as they start heading back to school. And for those who have discovered the fun of learning, school is an adventure! But for millions of working children worldwide, the adventures of a new school year remain but a dream. Sadly, these children will Read more
At Mass, on the first day of Advent, a friend gave me some rosary beads. I had three sets of rosary beads at home, but they are made of plastic. These are different, made of wood, warm to the touch. Instantly, they connected with my hand in a new way and spoke of two lives. Read more