This article is also available as a printer-friendly PDF document. Asking the Question Throughout his five-year reign, Pope Francis has been a controversial figure. He has pushed for novelties and innovations to both the papacy and the Church...
Over a month ago Archbishop Carlo Vigano, former apostolic nuncio to the United States, made a number of accusations against Pope Francis and others regarding their alleged cover-up of the Cardinal McCarrick affair. More recently Archbishop...
In the second century, the Church faced its first great heresy: Gnosticism. This confusing and eclectic system of beliefs threatened to destroy the Church in its infancy. Among Gnosticism’s tenets was the conviction that the material world is...
As frustration and anger toward bishops grow, Catholics are asking what they can do to resist the corruption that has infected the episcopate. Ideas include prayer, fasting, writing letters, and protesting at USCCB meetings. All these are valid...
Many years ago, a couple of Mormon missionaries came to my door. My policy has always been to invite them in for a chat. I do this for two reasons: 1) I’m able to evangelize them about Catholicism, and 2) they can’t be knocking on anyone else’s...
When I was in high school—long, long ago—I had a youth pastor who warned us that the spiritual life wouldn’t always be easy. Sometimes we wouldn’t have the enthusiasm we had as teenagers. As a young, newly-committed Christian, I heard his...
“He’ll be a bishop someday.” That was the prediction in the parish I attended fifteen years ago. Our pastor was a nice man – likable and affable. No one had anything negative to say about him. The best word I can use to describe him is “safe.” He...
When I converted from Evangelical Protestantism to Catholicism, I made a lot of theological changes in my life. I expected this, but I didn’t expect that I would be making a lot of sociological changes, too. Every group has its own subculture...
While on the scaffold awaiting his execution, St. Thomas More famously declared, “I die the king’s faithful servant, but God’s first.” Throughout the controversy surrounding King Henry’s divorce and remarriage, More was adamant about one thing...
The watchword of the day is “dialogue.” Invoked by Church leaders like an Eastern mystical mantra, dialogue is the solution to every problem. Pro-abortion politicians claiming to be good Catholics? We need dialogue. Priests promoting same-sex...
It was 2003 and I was a young father sending my daughter to a Catholic elementary school. I wanted to be involved in the direction of the school, so I volunteered for the school board for a three-year term. Most meetings were what you would...
Allison came up to me after my talk. She was distraught. Her co-worker Christina was a fallen-away Catholic, and nothing Allison said or did seemed to help her return to the Faith. For years, Christina was indifferent to her religion. She wasn’t...
