A Promise To John Paul II
On the evening of December 15, 2004, I had dinner in the papal apartment with John Paul II and several of his aides. Although his health had been deteriorating steadily
When Compromise Trumps Apostolic Tradition
Pope Benedict XVI’s pastoral visit to Great Britain next month will unfold along a pilgrim’s path metaphorically strewn with landmines. Headline-grabbing new atheists like Richard Dawkins, along with their allies
Surrounded by Martyrs
CRACOW. A lot has changed over the twenty years I’ve been coming to this beautiful city. The grayness and disrepair that were by-products of communism have been replaced by architectural
Papal Kudos for the Fourth Estate?
That Pope Benedict XVI is Catholicism’s most effective spokesman and navigator through the rocks and shoals of Scandal Time II was demonstrated yet again in May, during a flying papal
Catholic revival in Europe?
In mid-May, Pope Benedict XVI made an apostolic pilgrimage to Portugal; half a million people attended the outdoor papal Mass at Fatima. When the Pope returned to Rome, two hundred
Deep Catholicism
Eight years ago, during the Long Lent of 2002, I started using the phrase “Catholic Lite” to denote a cast of mind that, in my judgment, had contributed mightily to
Vatican Time Warp
It’s not easy to understand the decision of Time‘s editors to run the magazine’s current (June 7) cover story, with its cheesy title, “Why Being Pope Means Never Having to Say You’re
When the Mask of Tolerance Slips
The contempt in which the Catholic Church and its convictions are held by the ruling classes of 21st century Europe is hardly a secret. For reasons of political expedience, however,
Next Acts in the Legionary Drama
Over the past year, members and friends of the Legionaries of Christ and its affiliated lay movement, Regnum Christi, have worked hard in trying to “save what can be saved”
Money, Scandal, and Rome
It was virtually inevitable that the media firestorm over Benedict XVI’s handling of sexually abusive clerics — even if the insinuations against the Pope were unsubstantiated and unfair — would
An Open Letter to Hans Küng
Dr. Küng: A decade and a half ago, a former colleague of yours among the younger progressive theologians at Vatican II told me of a friendly warning he had given
The Limits of the Papacy
During the preparation of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Pope Paul VI proposed that the constitution’s discussion of papal primacy include the affirmation that the Pope
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