The Catholic Difference is a weekly column syndicated by the Archdiocese of Denver.
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
The Vatican’s China Deal Unravels Further
The latest self-inflicted blow to the Vatican’s China policy came in mid-July, when the Holy See announced that Pope Francis had “recognized” Bishop Joseph Shen Bin as Bishop of Shanghai—despite
Just War, Just Peace, and Ukraine
Carl von Clausewitz, the nineteenth-century Prussian military theorist whose masterpiece, On War, is still studied today, is not typically regarded as an intellectual resource for moral philosophers and moral theologians. That’s
From Westerplatte to Lisbon… and Everywhere Else
Westerplatte, a narrow peninsula framing the Bay of Gdańsk, was the scene of one of the first battles of World War II in Europe. On September 1, 1939, the German
Looking for the Lord Jesus in Lisbon
In mid-May, I spent two intense days in Lisbon, where a new Portuguese edition of my Letters to a Young Catholic was being prepared as a catechetical resource for World Youth Day
The “Synodal Process”:
Talking a New Church into Being?
One of the worst of contemporary hymn texts bids us to “Sing a new Church into being.” Not only does this injunction debase the noble hymn tune “Nettleton”; it teaches
Synod 2023: Reversing Vatican II?
The first words of the Second Vatican Council’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church—one of the council’s two most important texts—signaled a decisive development in Catholic self-understanding. Rather than begin its
A Laborious, and Vacuous, Instrument
It would not be quite accurate to describe the Working Document for the October 2023 Synod (its Instrumentum Laboris, or IL) as “disappointing.” No one who has followed the “synodal process”
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