The Moynihan Letters

    "We are in the presence of a style of government that does not trust, and does not rely on, filters and institutional mechanisms." —Prof. Massimo Faggioli, on the present style of the government of Pope Francis     "My thesis on this pontificate is that it represents a phase of very strong acceleration towards the globalization of [...]

    “The glory of God is man alive, but the life of man is the vision of God.” —St Irenaeus of Lyons, c. 180 A.D.     Letter #164, 2023: Giving Tuesday, November 28     Dear friend,     Greetings!     For more than 30 years I have been publishing Inside the Vatican magazine — the "Zero Issue" was in April 1993, [...]

    In better times — Pope Francis, 86 (left) with Cardinal Raymond Burke, 75 (right, link, link), some years ago. Burke has been critical of some of Francis' decisions and actions, and now Pope Francis is contemplating actions against Burke, including taking away his Vatican apartment and his cardinal's salary. Burke does not presently have any [...]

    “And if a house be divided against itself, that house cannot stand.” —Jesus, Gospel of Mark 3:25     "To believe in Christ means to desire unity; to desire unity means to desire the Church; to desire the Church means to desire the communion of grace which corresponds to the Father's plan from all eternity. Such is [...]

Cardinal Raymond Burke, 75 (link, link)     Pope Francis is reportedly contemplating actions against Burke, like taking away his Vatican apartment, and his cardinal's salary, according to reports today in Rome (link and link)     "You would be wise to take another path"     "A te convien tenere altro viaggio,"     rispuose, poi che lagrimar mi vide,     "se vuoi [...]

    Vladimir Soloviev (1853-1900). This profound Russian Orthodox theologian was deeply attracted to the Roman Catholic Church. He wrote many theological works, and dealt at length with the question of the Petrine primacy — the role of the Pope as the enduring "rock" upon which the Church is founded and due to which she will always [...]

Pietà (detail), by Giovanni Duprè, 1867, Siena, Cimitero della Misericordia (Cemetery of Mercy). The moment when the body of Jesus is taken down from the cross and given to his mother, Mary, for burial, is the moment of the intersection of the deepest love, deepest faith and deepest sorrow in our tradition, and so, in [...]

    "It was an era in which people were disappointed by charlatans and false prophets who claimed to be messengers of God." --Flavius Josephus (37 A.D-100 A.D.), about the first century after Jesus (see link). His most important works were The Jewish War (c. 75) and Antiquities of the Jews (c. 94). The Jewish War recounts the Jewish revolt against Roman occupation. Antiquities of [...]

    Today, a beautiful day in Rome, warm, sunny, clear, fresh, I received in my email from a friend a link to a video about a woman — Tammy Peterson, the wife of the Canadian author Jordan Peterson — who learned that she had a very rare, and seemingly inevitably fatal form of cancer, which would [...]

    A new report asks if Pope’s signature on a recent, controversial document (the entire text of the document, and the signatures, are below) is a "photo-shopped insertion" rather than an actual papal signature.     How and why did this happen?     (See this link for the original report which sparked this letter... it is in Croatian — [...]