Catholic Church

Letter #30, Wednesday, October 21, 2020: Redemption

    "Homosexual people have the right to be in a family. They are children of God. You can't kick someone out of a family, nor make their life miserable for this. What we have to have is a civil union law; that way they are legally covered." —Pope Francis, speaking in a just-released (2020) documentary film, shown in [...]

Letter #17, Wednesday, July 29, 2020: China

    This Letter is devoted to the question of the Catholic Church in China.     The question is important because the historic "secret agreement" between the Holy See and China to regulate the relations of the Church to the Chinese Communist government — especially regarding the selection of bishops for the Church — signed on September 22, [...]

Letter #1, 2020: The Controversy over the Book

"O Salutaris Hostia, Quae caeli pandis ostium!" ("O Saving Victim, opening wide The gate of heaven to man below!") —A hymn in praise of Jesus Christ, composed by St. Thomas Aquinas, writing in the 1200s. Aquinas says the work of Jesus Christ was, through his sacrificial death, to open the gates of Heaven (eternity) to man. [...]

Letter #49, 2019: The Matter of Schism

Wednesday, September 11, 2019 "Schism embraces two distinct species: heretical or mixed schism, and schism pure and simple. The first has its source in heresy or joined with it, the second, which most theologians designate absolutely as schism, is the rupture of the bond of subordination without an accompanying persistent error, directly opposed to a definite dogma. This distinction was drawn by St. Jerome and St. Augustine. 'Between heresy and [...]

Letter #48, 2019: A New Church?

Archbishop Vigano in a 2013 photo (CNS photo/Roberto Gonzalez) Monday, September 9, 2019 — Feast of St. Peter Claver, S.J. (1580-1654) St. Peter Claver was born at Verdu, Catalonia, Spain, in 1580, of impoverished parents descended from ancient families. He studied at the Jesuit college of Barcelona, entered the Jesuit novitiate at Tarragona in 1602, and took his final vows on August 8th, 1604. [...]

Pope: ‘Church of Acts a paradigm for every Christian community’

Pope Francis reflects on the life of the early Christian community during his ongoing catechesis on the Acts of the Apostles. Pope at Papal Audience (Wednesday) Vatican Media Picture Vatican media Dear brothers and sisters: In our catechesis on the Acts of the Apostles, we now consider the way of life of the first [...]

Pope Francis celebrates Paul VI: ‘the Pope of modernity’

Pope Francis on Sunday remembered Pope Paul VI forty years from his death which took place on 6 August 1978. Greeting the pilgrims present in St. Peter’s Square for the Sunday Angelus, Pope Francis turned his thoughts to a Pope he is preparing to canonize. “Forty years ago Blessed Pope Paul VI – the Pope of [...]

Progress in Catholic relations with Russian Orthodox world

Fr Hyacinthe Destivelle, from the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, talks about prospects for the new phase of relationships between Moscow and the Holy See While Churches in the West prepare to celebrate the Epiphany this Sunday, Christians in much of the Eastern Orthodox world, which follows the ancient Julian calendar, are gearing up for their [...]

Load More Posts

Title