John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Islam
Throughout the recent controversy over Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks on faith and reason at Regensburg University, attempts have been made to drive a wedge between Benedict and his papal predecessor.
The Pope and Islam
Over the 18 years I have known Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, I’ve formed some distinct impressions of the man. He is, first of all, a Christian gentleman whose
The Pope Was Right
In a brilliant lecture at the University of Regensburg last week, Pope Benedict XVI made three crucial points that are now in danger of being lost in the polemics about his
Truth at the Fifty-Yard Line?
In a series of talks and interviews surrounding the announcement of his retirement as archbishop of Washington, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick frequently told his favorite John Paul II story: the story
Afraid of Change? More Myths of 1968
In a recent editorial on condoms and AIDS, the London-based Tablet, an influential weekly in the Catholic Anglosphere, argued that “in 1968, the most persuasive reason advanced in favor of
The "Truce of 1968," Once Again
In 1968, Cardinal Patrick O’Boyle of Washington, D.C., disciplined nineteen priests who had publicly dissented from Pope Paul VI’s teaching in the encyclical Humanae Vitae. Three years later, the Vatican’s
Catholic Democrats and Abortion: Same Old Same Old
A thought exercise: It’s 1964, and Congress is debating the Civil Rights Act. For years, the Catholic bishops of the United States have taught that segregation is an offense against
The Catholic Engine of Western Progress
The standard account of the history of the West from, say, 400-1500 would run something like this: The breakdown of the Roman empire sent western Europe into the centuries-long civilizational
Nothing Ordinary About This Time
The late Dorothy Sayers, author of the Lord Peter Wimsey detective stories, was a gifted amateur theologian, as the notes she wrote to her translation of Dante’s “Divine Comedy” readily
Re-reading Modern History
In his Christmas address to the Roman Curia on true and false interpretations of Vatican II, Pope Benedict XVI asked why the Church had had such a difficult time opening
Getting the Council Right
Every year, just before or after Christmas, the pope meets with senior members of the Roman Curia for a review of the year just past and a preview of the
Forming Priests in Today’s Culture
Now that the initial dust over the Congregation for Catholic Education’s recent Instruction on homosexuality and candidacy for the priesthood has settled, three points seem worth underscoring. The first point
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