The Catholic Difference is a weekly column syndicated by the Archdiocese of Denver.
In Support of Jimmy Lai
As chief executive of the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, John Lee is the principal enforcer of the Chinese communist regime’s ever-tightening chokehold on his city’s liberties. Earlier this month,
The Grave Sin of Jew Hatred
Shortly after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, I noted in this column and elsewhere that the entire episode—including the fouling of the public space by the aggressor’s genocidal threats
All Saints, All Souls, and Synod-2023
By their vocabulary, you shall know them? Well, to a considerable degree. And in these early November days, when the Church celebrates all the saints in glory and prays for
The Synod on Synodality at the Halfway Point
The Synod on Synodality meeting this month is the first of a two-part synodal assembly; the second session is scheduled to meet a year from now, in October 2024. No
Questions to Enliven Synod-2023
The first session of the “Synod on Synodality,” currently meeting in Rome, is slated to be followed by a second such month-long affair in October 2024. Both aim to build
The Hartford Appeal and the Synod on Synodality
In the winter of 1974, Richard John Neuhaus, then a Lutheran pastor, and Peter Berger, the distinguished sociologist of religion, spent an evening smoking cigarillos in the Bergers’ Brooklyn Heights
India, China, and the Future
The September 2 issue of The Spectator featured a cartoon of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak riding an ascending rocket. Inside, the lead article—a preview of
The Blessed Ulma Family and Our Catholic Moment
It’s a rare occasion when the word “unprecedented” can be used for a Church whose history extends over two millennia. Yet something unprecedented happened in the Polish village of Markowa
Solidarity with a Martyr-Church
Ever since the 1596 Union of Brest re-established full communion between the Bishop of Rome and several ecclesiastical jurisdictions in Eastern Europe, what we know today as the Ukrainian Greek
Living Communio in Cracow
I wish all those who find themselves concerned, depressed, befuddled, or angry at the present state of the Church could have spent July 3–21 in that city of saints, Cracow,
True and False Reconciliation
In early July, Vladimir Putin toured an Orthodox church in St. Petersburg, piously crossed himself, and lit a candle. Hours before, Russian missiles had attacked the Ukrainian port city of
Archbishop Fernández and the Learning Curve
Pope Francis has just given the Vatican his Ratzinger,” declared one July 2 headline; “Pope Francis Finds His Ratzinger,” announced another, four days later. Both quickie assessments of Argentinian Archbishop
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