Category: catholic news

Pope Francis is safe in Iraq as you read this, I hope. His venturing out to such an unstable place is a testament to his willingness to take risks for the good of the people, Christian and Islamic alike. America and NCR will have reporters covering this trip and generating stories about this remarkable outreach;…
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The American political concept of term limits makes it comfortable for me to write about the resignation of another Vatican prelate, Cardinal Robert Sarah. Sarah is 75, the retirement age for bishops. My discomfort is that as head of the worship office he is one of a very few persons of African ancestry visible in…
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We’re getting our share of snow as I write this. My apartment looks out on Rittenhouse Square, a classically designed park that has become a dog run this pandemic winter. I find myself watching the various groups that gather: at 8 am on the west side, 9:30 on the south, etc. The dogs chase each…
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Pope Francis is serious about finding competent women to place in administrative positions. This week, it is Nathalie Becquart, a Xavière Missionary Sister, appointed as one of two  undersecretaries in the Vatican’s office for the Synod of Bishops. This is especially interesting because organizing a meeting of bishops is not usually a role assigned to…
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“‘I think often about a group of bishops who, after Vatican I, left … to continue the “true doctrine” that wasn’t that of Vatican I,’ said the pontiff. ‘Today, they ordain women,’ the pope continued, adding: ‘The severest attitude, to guard the faith without the magisterium of the church, brings you to ruin.’”  Ruin? Thank you,…
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The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), to be specific. Did their elected president, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose Gomez, not anticipate that his statement would be seen as entirely inappropriate on an Inauguration Day that celebrated Catholics from the President to the Poet? What were they thinking? I always go back to my experience…
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Some criticized Francis’s decision to change Canon Law and allow all people to be acolytes and lectors because it reinforces the clericalism the Pope wishes to eradicate. I am especially sensitive to this charge because I bristle at the least exercise of clericalism. But it’s so odd – it’s only clerical when women can get…
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We now understand how privilege operates. Some people get to do things that others don’t. Many are seeing that in the response of the police to “gatherings” in Washington this year. I’m not going to explore this here; I’m just putting it in your minds. Some people are able to be a lot more free…
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Whenever I would go to meetings in DC, including the WOC Board, I would get a thrill seeing the Capitol dome, as I see it tonight. I remember being inside with a class I took to Washington near the end of my teaching career. We took photos and listened for echoes in statuary hall.  We…
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I am writing this on the last day of 2020. You are reading it on the second day of 2021. Do you feel different? Are you relieved? Hopeful? Joyful, even? I wish that for you and for all of us. No more darkness covering the earth.  Meanwhile, I am finding many lists that try to…
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