The Moynihan Letters

Letter #21, 2017: Is Pleasure Supreme?

May 17, 2017, Wednesday Is Pope Francis planning to re-examine the Church's teaching on contraception? Rumors have been circulating in Rome for several days, since a May 11 blog post by veteran Italian Vaticanist Marco Tosatti, that Francis is seriously considering setting up a commission to study Humanae Vitae, the 1968 papal document of Pope Paul [...]

Letter #20, 2017: After Fatima, #2

May 15, 2017, Monday "What united Orthodox and Catholics in those years was far more important than that which divided them, for they were united by love of Christ.”— Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, "Foreign Minister" of the Russian Orthodox Church, in his address on May 11 to the "World Summit of Christian Leaders in Defense [...]

Letter #19, 2017: After Fatima…

May 15, 2017, Monday "I saw that American leaders wanted to cooperate with Russia.”—The influential Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion Alfeyev, the Oxford-educated "Foreign Minister" of the increasingly powerful Russian Orthodox Church, in an interview published today on the website of the Russian Orthodox Moscow Patriarchate. The interview follows Hilarion's four-day trip to Washington D.C. to participate [...]

Letter #18, 2017: Fatima at 100

May 10, 2017, Wednesday "I will go to Fatima on a pilgrimage, to entrust to the Virgin the temporal and eternal destinies of humanity.”—Pope Francis today at his May 10 Wednesday General Audience, referring to his upcoming trip on Friday to Fatima, Portugal, to canonize two of the shepherd children who were witnesses to the apparitions [...]

Letter #17, 2017: Trump Will Meet Pope Francis

May 4, 2017, Thursday Alert Today from the Holy See Press Office His Holiness Pope Francis will receive the Hon. Donald Trump, President of the United States of America, on Wednesday, 24 May 2017, at 8:30 a.m. in the Apostolic Palace. President Trump will then meet with His Eminence Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State, and [...]

Letter #16, 2017: Hard Hearts

May 2, 2017, Tuesday “The Lord softens those with hard hearts, those who condemn all who are outside the law.” —Pope Francis this morning in his homily in the chapel of the Domus Santa Marta, his residence in Rome (Vatican Radio, May 2, 2017) — “The Lord softens those with hard hearts, those who condemn all [...]

Letter #14, 2017: The Quest

April 23, 2017, Sunday, Divine Mercy Sunday "Christian liturgy is a liturgy of promise fulfilled, of a quest, the religious quest of human history, reaching its goal. But it remains a liturgy of hope. It, too, bears within it the mark of impermanence. The new Temple, not made by human hands, does exist, but it is [...]

Letter #13, 2017: Holy Saturday

April 15, 2017, Holy Saturday From Norcia to Chieti During Holy Saturday, on the Vigil of Easter, silence. Time to stand apart. To stand aside. To divest of all, thoughts, hopes, judgments, even fears. To divest, to unclothe, as did Francis of Assisi, before the bishop of Assisi in 1207, when he gave back everything to [...]

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