Fifty years ago, many observers of American religion assumed that secularization would gradually wash traditional Christianity away. Twenty years ago, Christianity looked surprisingly resilient, and so the smart thinking changed: maybe there was an American exception to secularizing trends, or maybe a secularized Europe was the exception and the modernity-equals-secularization thesis was altogether wrong. Now Read more
As the Sun sets over Nazareth, a village on the banks of the Amazon river in the Colombian rainforest, a Jesuit priest peers out at a small congregation, made up of members of the indigenous Tikuna people. They are sitting on rickety benches around the edges of a cement church. “Why is everyone so far Read more
Another year, another row over French secularism and the hijab in France. This time, the debate erupted after a far-right politician asked a woman who was accompanying her son and other children on a school trip to a regional council headquarters to remove her headscarf when entering the building. It is a reminder that, for Read more
Joe Biden is a proud Catholic. He carries a rosary to remember his late son Beau, and as recent headlines show, he attends Mass even during a grueling campaign. But when the former vice president presented himself for Communion at St. Anthony Catholic Church in South Carolina on Sunday (Oct. 27), a priest denied him Read more
Presidential candidate Joe Biden’s denial of reception of Holy Communion in South Carolina on Sunday has renewed scrutiny of his evolving views on abortion. Over the course of his decades-long career, the Catholic former Vice President has said that the Supreme Court decision Roe v. Wade went too far, but has now pledged to enshrine Read more
You are called by God to be a saint! And that all important calling from the Lord is not just to be seriously considered on All Saints Day – but every day! It is no coincidence that the Catholic Church proclaims the Gospel passage of the Beatitudes on the Solemnity of All Saints. For in Read more
Among those who believe the Catholic Church must modernise to save itself from perpetual decline, some of the staunchest advocates are church leaders here in Germany. Some German bishops have spoken in favour of abandoning the celibacy requirement for priests and vaulting women into leadership roles now off-limits. Some have urged updating the religion’s stern Read more
Catholics, especially in the German-speaking world, were surprised to hear that Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, once strongly favoured the ordination of married men. Not only in remote areas but also in large city parishes. More recently, on 11 October, Müller told the Tagespost that “not even the Read more
Last week, Vatican Media interviewed Fr. Paulo Suess, a German priest who has served for decades among the indigenous peoples of the Amazon. Fr. Suess is in Rome as an official of the Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, and is regarded there as an expert on the region. The priest was asked about a Read more
Heading into the much-heralded Synod of Bishops on the Amazon, there was considerable speculation about whether the summit would, or would not, endorse married priests, the so-called viri probati, as a solution to the region’s chronic priest shortages. Along the way, there was also a fair bit of chatter about ordaining women deacons as a Read more