Monday, July 15, 2019 Above, St. Basil's Cathedral at the end of Moscow's Red Square in the center of the city Writing from Moscow, on a cool day in mid-July. I have been here about 20 times in the last 20 years. I have had the privilege to come to know Russian Orthodox Patriarch [...]
Saturday, July 6, 2019 "Do you see any signs that the Vatican, under Pope Francis, is taking proper steps to address the serious issues of abuse? If not, what is missing?" —Question from the Washington Post this spring to Archbishop Carlo Maria Vigano (link) "The signs I see are truly ominous. Not only is Pope Francis doing close [...]
Thursday, June 27, 2019 "A room for 8,000 euros a night" "Chacune de ses nuits cette semaine à Paris dans l'une des plus belles suites de l'hôtel Bristol coûte 8.000 euros..." ("Each of his nights this week in Paris in one of the loveliest suites of the Hotel Bristol costs 8,000 euros..."). —Article in the French [...]
Wednesday, June 26, 2019, #2 "No worst, there is none" Oscar Alberto Martinez Ramirez and his 23-month-old daughter, Angie Valeria, from El Salvador, died together on Sunday as they tried to swim across the Rio Grande river between Mexico and the United States. They were crossing from Mexico into Texas near Brownsville. They actually had made it [...]
Update on Burke-Bannon: The Article that Disappeared Wednesday June 26, 2019 Yesterday American Cardinal Raymond Burke issued a tough statement (full text below) announcing he was severing immediately his relationship with the Dignitatis Humanae Institute (of which he was the honorary president). He did so, he said, because American political activist Steve Bannon -- a supporter [...]
Tuesday June 25, 2019 Above, American political activist Steve Bannon (left) and American Cardinal Raymond Burke (right). Photo Credit: Breitbart News A Sudden Split... Steve Bannon and Cardinal Raymond Burke had met occasionally in recent years. They had seemed to be collaborating, especially with regard to setting up an Academy in Italy inside a [...]
The Pope and the Populist Above, Pope Francis (left) and American political activist Steve Bannon (right). Sometimes one takes a step that starts one on a journey one would prefer not to set out upon. I may have taken that step with my decision to publish, a few days ago, in my "Letter #31: [...]
Above, the cover of a new book I have just published. It is the English translation (done by my son, Christopher Hart-Moynihan, an expert in the Italian and Russian languages) of a book-length interview with the thoughtful, learned Hungarian cardinal Peter Erdo, 66 (Erdo will turn 67 in five days, on June 25). Erdo is the [...]
The Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Christian faith has from its earliest years regarded virginity and sexual restraint with great respect and reverence, and this has played a central role in the requirement in the Roman Catholic Church that priests not be married, and if married, that they be sexually continent Wednesday, [...]
Tuesday, June 18, 2019 Pope Francis, a Jesuit himself, met with a group of Jesuits from Romania at the apostolic nunciature in Bucharest, Romania, on May 31, 2019, during his visit to Romania three weeks ago. In remarks to the group, the Pope said the Church was being "wounded by tensions within it." The conversation during [...]
