July 29, 2016, Friday -- Again, Russia... Earthen Vessels.... "But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves." —2 Corinthians 4:7 "As light was the beginning of the first creation; so, in the new creation, the light of the Spirit is his [...]
May 26, 2016, Thursday -- The Pope's Homily on the Feast of Corpus Christi Pope Francis Remembers What Jesus Did, And What He Asks... "Jesus was broken; he is broken for us. And he asks us to give ourselves, to break ourselves, as it were, for others." —Pope Francis, today in Rome, in his homily for [...]
May 26, 2016, Thursday -- Cardinal Sarah's Remarkable Talk Last Week in Washington Cardinal Sarah Issues a Powerful Warning... "The battle to preserve the roots of mankind is perhaps the greatest challenge our world has faced since its origins." —Cardinal Robert Sarah, Prefect of the Holy See's Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the [...]
May 18, 2016, Wednesday -- Francis, His Interviews, and the "Re-Branding" of the Church Francis Interviewed Again, This Time by La Croix, a French Paper... "We need to speak of 'roots' in the plural because there are so many. In this sense, when I hear talk of the Christian roots of Europe, I sometimes dread the [...]
May 16, 2016, Monday -- The Three Positions (And Now Four) On Amoris Laetitia The text below is the Editorial in the May edition of Inside the Vatican, which is just out. (To obtain a copy of the issue or to subscribe for one or more years, click here. We welcome new subscribers, of course. If [...]
May 13, 2016, Friday -- In the Footsteps of Pope Benedict XVI... Blessed Feast Day of Our Lady of Fatima... "In terms of what we today can discover in this message [the message of Fatima], attacks against the Pope or the Church don't come just from outside the Church. The suffering of the Church also comes [...]
May 5, 2016, Thursday -- A Russian Concert in Palmyra, Syria, Contains a Message to the West The Diplomacy of Music As I write this, a renowned Russian conductor is conducting an orchestral concert called "Prayer for Palmyra: Music Revives Ancient Ruins" in the ruins of the ancient desert city of Palmyra in war-torn Syria. As [...]
April 29, 2016, Friday -- Toward the Orthodox Easter In the Orthodox Church, Today Is Good Friday, and Sunday Will Be Easter Sunday In the West, we sometimes forget that the Orthodox world still celebrates Holy Week according to the old calendar. And, according to the old calendar, today is Good Friday, and Easter will fall [...]
April 28, 2016, Thursday -- A Prominent German Theologian Warns of the Danger of Schism "That it is a rupture is something that is seems obvious to any person capable of thinking who reads the texts in question." —Prof. Robert Spaemann, 89, a leading German Catholic philosopher, in an interview yesterday on the Pope's document Amoris [...]
April 27, 2016, Wednesday -- The Next Synod: The Return of "The Peace of God"? "The Pope would like to dedicate the next Synod of Bishops to the theme of peace." —The Italian news agency ANSA, in a short news article released this morning in Italy. The question of what topic the next Bishops' Synod would [...]
