Pope Benedict XVI: The Master-Teacher
Joseph Ratzinger came to the Chair of St Peter late in life, a 78-year-old man who could look back (although he rarely, if ever, chose to do so) on decades
The End of the Anglican Communion
There’s an Anglican church, St. Luke’s, a few blocks up Old Georgetown Road from my parish in the Maryland suburbs of Washington, D.C.. St. Luke’s recently posted a large sign
The KGB Campaign Against Pius XII
Call me skeptical, but I suspect that what my friend Joseph Bottum christened “The Pius War” will never be resolved. Controversy over Pope Pius XII’s role during the Second World
Turning Toward Christ, Together
As discussion of deepening the Church’s liturgical reform unfolds, a lively conversation will likely revolve around be the question of “orientation” during Mass: Might priest and people face in the
Polish Catholicism’s Opportunity
It’s been a tough month for Polish Catholicism. Yet, even in the wake of the resignation of Warsaw’s new archbishop and the revelations of clerical cooperation with the communist secret
"Lede" Us Not into Confusion
Journalists often use the spelling “lede” to distinguish the first sentence of a story from other connotations of “lead.” The 2006 Lede Us Not Into Confusion Prize goes to Malcolm
The Archbishop and the Secret Police
The dramatic resignation this past Sunday of the newly installed archbishop of Warsaw, Stanislaw Wielgus, who admitted to having agreed to collaborate with the Polish secret police after initially denying
The Great Places
Ever since the Church’s first bishops gathered their priests and people around them for the celebration of the Holy Eucharist, Christians have thought of the cathedral — the church in
From Centesimus Annus to Deus Caritas Est
On December 12, the Acton Institute hosted a conference at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University on the relationship of John Paul II’s 1991 social encyclical, Centesimus Annus, to Pope Benedict XVI’s
Regensburg Revisited
In mid-October, thirty-eight Muslim leaders wrote an “Open Letter to His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI,” in response to the Pope’s September lecture at Regensburg University and the international controversy that
From Rottweiler to Dunce?
A few days after the election of Pope Benedict XVI, some friends and I gathered for a celebratory dinner at Rome’s Taverna Giulia — a favorite haunt of journalists, due
An Interreligious Dialogue, Continued
A few days after Pope Benedict XVI’s lecture on faith and reason at Regensburg University, I was invited onto PBS’s News Hour with Jim Lehrer to discuss the ensuing controversy
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To those about to be ordained (Part 2)
When Compromise Trumps Apostolic Tradition
