For years the church talked a lot about the holiness of God and the righteousness of God, and for years the church told us we should have the fear of God. When you walked into a church sanctuary, there was a reverent tone. But then there was a swing in the other direction. Of course, Read more
On October 2, former Dallas police officer Amber Guyger was convicted of murdering Botham Jean in his own home. Guyger claims she entered Jean’s apartment by accident (she lived on the floor above) and, mistaking him for a burglar, shot him dead. Jean was eating a bowl of ice cream. Following Guyger’s sentencing, Jean’s 18-year-old Read more
Peter Hünermann, one of the world’s leading Catholic theologians and an expert on the Second Vatican Council, says the “Amazon Synod” is an integral part of the process for Church reform that Pope Francis mapped out at the very start of his pontificate more than six years ago. The 90-year-old German priest-professor recently told the Read more
What incenses me the most about the theft of the icon of Our Lady of the Amazon from a Rome church this week is that the person who filmed themselves stealing it, and then throwing it in the River Tiber, genuflects on the way into the church. It is a deep, confident knee-to-the-floor genuflection; the Read more
Saints don’t fit into the usual categories of right and left, conservative and liberal. This is certainly the case with Newman, a 19th-century English intellectual giant and Catholic priest who at the height of his very considerable public renown left a distinguished post at Oxford to start a school and work among the poor of Read more
The agenda for the Synod of Bishops for the Pan-Amazon Region being held in Rome includes discussion of the ordination of “married men of proven virtue” (viri probati) to provide opportunities to join in the Eucharist for the Catholics of Amazonia, where a shortage of priests prevents people from sharing in the sacrament for months Read more
As the synod on the Amazon region enters it final week, the bishops gathered here to discuss the region’s challenges and make recommendations to Pope Francis will begin preparing their final report. Their words could have profound impact not only on the Amazon but the entire church, as the ideas they present about protecting the Read more
If you have reread Mahatma Gandhi’s biography, you will know that at one time, he wanted to be a Catholic. He always had a relationship with Christ Jesus and, in pursuing that, he went to a church to enquire about instruction. It was a white church. The priest told Gandhi he should go to a Read more
If the prelates attending the Vatican’s Synod of Bishops for the Amazon ask that Pope Francis allow married priests to address a lack of Catholic ministers across the nine-nation region, the path for implementing such a proposal is fairly straightforward, say four eminent canon lawyers. Although the canonists have slightly different ideas about the concrete Read more
One Venezuelan prelate taking part in the current Synod of Bishops on the Amazon says people back home have a creative alternative for coping with chronic priest shortages, beyond the much-discussed idea of married clergy to serve isolated rural communities. Rather than ordaining married men, he said, their proposal is that he bring some of Read more