Analysis

We do more than report. Piercing analysis into the Vatican’s greatest resources and challenges.

Catholic bishops: Charity on the government’s dime

By Michael Hichborn* A Plenary Meeting of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops in Orlando, Florida, June 16, 2023 (Photo - Vatican News). The relationship between the Catholic bishops of the United States and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) started almost as soon as USAID came into existence. USAID was established [...]

Read More

The Popes warned us, but we didn’t listen

America's tragic "event horizon" now seems unavoidable, except through prayer By Christopher A. Ferrara *[Note: This essay was written in October before the Election] Liberty Leading the People by Eugene Delacroix Washington Crossing the Delaware by Emanuel Leutze The story political modernity tells about itself, which even American “conservatives” view as received [...]

Read More

“Contrary to Christian Moral Teaching”

In a blow to Catholic-Orthodox relations, Fiducia Supplicans has elicited a scathing theological analysis from the Russian Orthodox Church By Robert Moynihan Russian Orthodox Metropolitan Hilarion of Budapest and Hungary, chairman of the Russian Orthodox Synodal Biblical and Theological Commission, with His Holiness Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Rus’ The Vatican on December [...]

Read More

Fiducia Supplicans in the real world

Fallout from the Church's new document on blessing "irregular relationships" continues By Christina Deardurff Coptic Orthodox Pope Tawadros, 71, and Pope Francis, 87, at a Vatican meeting a year ago, May 11, 2023 The declaration Fiducia Supplicans, released just a week before Christmas of 2023 by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the [...]

Read More

A Tale of Two Synods

Pope Francis thanks the media as he leaves the concluding session of the extraordinary Synod of Bishops on the Family at the Vatican October 18. One Synod took place inside the Synod Hall from October 5 to 19. The other Synod took place outside the hall... in the world’s media. On October 19, the [...]

Read More

America and Catholic Social Teaching: An Urgent Warning

One of the leading economic historians of our time, Dr. Rupert Ederer, an expert on the thought of Father Heinrich Pesch, SJ (1854-1926), takes a look at our present economic crisis. For anyone who takes Catholic social teaching seriously, specifically in the context of the present woeful condition of the American economy, it is necessary to [...]

Read More

President Obama vs. the Catholic Church

An analysis of why US President Barack Obama chose to challenge the power of the Catholic Church during this election year The Rev. Rob Schenck of the National Clergy Council, Father Peter West, vice president for missions of Human Life International, and Gary G. Dull, pastor of Faith Baptist Church in Altoona, Pennsylvania, pray as [...]

Read More