The Pope today celebrated the Holy Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper in a juvenile prison, where he washed the feet of 12 young people. Two of them were young women. Two were Muslims.The question of whether or not women's feet may be washed has been a contentious one in recent years. At
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One wonders what the Cardinals in the conclave will be looking for in the man they will select to be the next pope. A March 2 editorial in the Tablet entitled "Reform Dominates the Agenda" suggests that structural reform is urgently needed to address an inner breakdown in the Church. Here
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I’ve been waiting to read that the newly-installed Archbishop of San Francisco, Salvatore Cordileone, has offered a warm and sincere apology to the Episcopal Bishop of San Francisco, Marc Andrus. But as of today, I’m still waiting.
Here’s what happened, as far as published sources have
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George Weigel recently posted an essay about the current presidential campaign on the blog of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. It’s entitled: “Campaign 2012: Burke vs. Hobbes?”
It’s a good thing he put a question mark at the end of the title. Although Weigel wants to make big claims
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One usually associates improvisation with jazz. But chant also holds the potential for improvisation, as the choir of Trinity Church (Episcopal) Wall Street, in New York, showed this past weekend. Their singing of the Passion according to Mark (see below) deserves to be widely heard. I know I
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I was invited to write a guest opinion column (250-750 words) for the Washington Post ("On Faith") about the new translation of the Roman Missal. It appeared yesterday. Here's a bit of it.
Many of the new prayers ... contain a pile-up of subordinate clauses reflecting Latin syntax
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Advent is the shortest season in the liturgical year. It’s like a tiny jewel. In the space of four weeks we go from the end of the world to the birth of the Messiah—and we have many impressive encounters along the way. The thunder of John the Baptist is here. The quiet fiat of the Virgin Mary
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The Arizona Republic reported today that Bishop Thomas Olmsted is reversing his earlier decision to limit Communion under both forms in the diocese of Phoenix.
[I]n his letter to priests dated Monday, the bishop cited as the reason for his change of mind "two primary changes in my
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Following on the decision of Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona, Bishop Morlino, of the Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin, has announced that Communion under both forms will be sharply curtailed in his own diocese as well. It’s hard to believe it, but this move is being presented as a universal
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It has been pretty much the talk of the liturgical town that Bishop Olmsted of Phoenix, Arizona, is withdrawing permission to give communion under both forms to the laity except under certain limited conditions. Communion from the cup will no longer be offered in Phoenix on ordinary Sundays or
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The current issue of Commonweal carries my critique of the new translation of the Roman Missal (It Doesn’t Sing), as well as a brief chronology offered as a sidebar to the story (Roman Missal Crisis). Both are now available to non-subscribers.
The sidebar is intended to help the reader keep
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As an observer of the re-translation of the Roman Missal since 1990 or so, I was very pleased to see that Robert Mickens has an article in the June 18 issue of the Tablet about the politics that have taken place behind the scenes -- leading to the latest version. There has been plenty of
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