Diminished Bishops, the New Ultramontanism, and the Synodal Process
Thanks to the Franco-Prussian War, the First Vatican Council was suspended in October 1870 and never reconvened. Before its unanticipated end, Vatican I did important work: It defined the universal
Three Pontificates and Vatican II
The Council had been “an event of utmost importance” in the two millennia of Christian history.
Why Vatican II Was Necessary
Writing my new book, To Sanctify the World: The Vital Legacy of Vatican II (Basic Books), afforded me the welcome opportunity to dig into the Council’s sixteen texts and the many fine
John XXIII’s Original Intention for Vatican II
Sixty years after its solemn opening on October 11, 1962, is there anything new to be said about the Second Vatican Council? I think there is. And I hope to
An Open Letter to the Synod General Secretary
His Eminence, Mario Cardinal GrechGeneral SecretarySynod of Bishops00120 Vatican City Your Eminence: The “National Synthesis of the People of God in the United States of America for the Diocesan Phase
Evangelization: What and When?
At the “information meeting” of the College of Cardinals this past August 29–30, there was considerable agreement that evangelization is Catholicism’s prime imperative for the twenty-first century—a consensus understandably gratifying
Finding the Bishops We Need
There was considerable excitement in some quarters this summer when Pope Francis appointed three women as members of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Bishops, which makes recommendations to the pope for
“Matthew 25 Catholics”?
Barring a startling lurch to starboard in the Empire State, Kathy Hochul, who as lieutenant governor succeeded the unlamented Andrew Cuomo on his political demise, will be chosen governor of
Another Assault on John Paul II
On May 13, 1981, Pope John Paul II had lunch in the papal apartment with Dr. Jerome Lejeune, the renowned French pediatrician and geneticist who identified the chromosomal abnormality that
The War of the Conciliar Succession, Continued
While I’ve never been able to remember the details of the War of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714) and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), I’ve riffed on those monikers
Demythologizing Conclaves
Pope Francis’s recent announcement that he will create twenty-one new cardinals on August 27, sixteen of whom would vote in a conclave held after that date, set off the usual
The Cardinal and Jimmy
Tertullian, the first major Christian theologian to write in Latin, is thought to have coined the maxim Semen est sanguis Christianorum, typically (and rather freely) translated as “the blood of martyrs
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