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Last fall, the Archdiocese of Boston released an ambitious plan designed to stem the decline it has experienced—in priests, Mass attendance, and treasure—since the 2002 wave of sexual-abuse scandals.
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“The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born. In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms occur.”
—Antonio Gramsci, Prison Notebooks
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Beginning in Advent of this year, the language of the Mass will be very different. A new translation of the Roman Missal—the book of prayers used in the Mass—will be put into use in all Catholic churches in the English-speaking world. Some who have...
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Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who’s guarding the guards? It’s a question that exasperated members of a credibility-challenged organization have long asked about their leaders. How can we trust that the people who got us into a bad situation can get...
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Is religious conscience special? And what kinds of claims (if any) does conscience warrant? These are two of the many questions Brian Leiter raises in his provocative book Why Tolerate Religion? (Princeton University Press, $24.95, 192 pp.).
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The New York Times isn’t fair. In its all-hands-on-deck drive to implicate the pope in diocesan cover-ups of abusive priests, the Times has relied on a steady stream of documents unearthed or supplied by Jeff Anderson, the nation’s most aggressive...
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Pope Benedict's resignation shouldn't have surprised us as much as it did. As an institutionalist who believes in the Roman Catholic Church as the carrier of truth in a sinful world, he would worry a great deal about the impact of his own...
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1963: Vatican II allowed the use of “the mother tongue” in the liturgy, entrusting bishops conferences with overseeing translations, which Rome would then approve. Bishops conferences throughout the English-speaking world established the...
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Richard R. Gaillardetz, Thomas Baker
RICHARD R. GAILLARDETZ
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"The church is not the pope, and the pope is not the church,” theologian Joseph Komonchak reminds us (see “Benedict’s Act of Humility”). Amen to that.
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Among the distinguishing characteristics of Irish Catholics—in America as much as Ireland—was our version of omertà: the code of silence. We never opened our mouths about the church outside the tribe. Most times we didn't do it among ourselves.
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To shed some light on the crisis in seminary formation today (see “Tomorrow’s Priests,” November 3), let me describe a priest I know, a man I will refer to as Fr. Bo. Ordained after barely scraping by in the seminary academically...
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Whenever I read an article that advocates refusing the Eucharist to people whose public politics conflict with church teachings, it worries me. I find I have a lot of questions. Why, for instance, does the controversy seem to center only on one hot-...
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Cardinal Avery Dulles (1918–2008) was probably the most respected Catholic theologian in the United States in the last quarter of the twentieth century. The author of twenty-four books and more than eight hundred articles, Dulles was widely known...
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St. Pius X, in his encyclical Vehementer (1902), wrote: “By its very nature the church is a society of unequals; it is composed of two categories of persons: the pastors and the flocks.
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Grown-Up Men
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I’m tired of being nice about it, tired of being politically correct when this issue comes up. So I’ll be blunt. Someone just left my parish to join one that has an altar on wheels, and I’m angry about it.
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Sometimes, when talking to younger audiences, the theologian Lisa Sowle Cahill will describe herself as a “relic” of the distant and benighted era before the Second Vatican Council.
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It was a Mass celebrating a major anniversary of the parish and I was right in the middle of the homily. It was also one of those exquisite moments when the message and the congregation connected to such a degree that you could hear a pin drop. I...
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John F. Desmond, Kevin Tortorelli, Thomas L. Kuhlman
Not a Reset Button
Thomas L. Kuhlman
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Last fall the seminary where I teach was visited by a team of examiners sent by the Vatican. Interviews were conducted with faculty members and with students studying for the priesthood. Initially, I was hopeful that the visit would lead to a...
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In a way, ours is like any other marriage, a union of souls, raising children, paying the bills. In a way, too, it is like any other second marriage embarked on by two people in their early middle age. Both accustomed to being in charge, running...
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I’m not sure exactly when I began dreading parish-council meetings, those monthly assemblies of parish staff, elected parishioners, and sundry officeholders.
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Stanley Hauerwas is the most immediately likable bombthrower I have ever met. I first encountered him and his essays during that part of the 1970s I spent in the newly hatched field of bioethics.
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Around these parts, the “Year of the Priest” has been as much of a nonevent as the opening of Al Capone’s vault or spending New Year’s Eve with the Y2K bug. Although Pope Benedict XVI officially began the observance last June, it wasn’t until eight...
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This month marks the beatification of John Henry Newman (1801–90), long considered a saint by some and even worthy of being declared a doctor of the church.
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The candidate to be ordained deaconess is presented to the bishop.... As she bows her head the bishop imposes his hand...praying:
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From junior high school through college, I drifted from the church. But after college and before I was about to move out of state for graduate studies, I experienced a dramatic spiritual awakening.
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The last pope to resign did so more than seven hundred years ago, which is a long time even by church standards.
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Virtually everyone in Latin America (and North America as well) had every reason to be thrilled with the election of Jorge Mario Bergoglio, SJ, cardinal archbishop of Buenos Aires, to the papacy.
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Anyone who followed media coverage of the papal conclave that elected the Argentine Jorge Mario Bergoglio, now Pope Francis, couldn’t help noticing that the same breathless questions were raised again and again by commentators assessing the future...
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The recent instruction from the Congregation for Catholic Education regarding the ordination of homosexuals suggests to me that seminaries are hardly the best place to help gay men mature, learn from their experiences, and seek the support of...
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I met the theologian Fr. James Alison in the blogosphere. I’d written a post presenting his fascinating suggestion that Benedict XVI was slowly preparing the way for a change in church teaching concerning homosexuality.
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Who really was Robert F. Drinan, SJ? One of only two priests ever elected to the United States Congress, he has now been dead for three years, yet his legacy remains uncertain, and the man himself elusive.
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There has been a lot of loose talk about the current crisis facing the Catholic Church and the Vatican in particular.
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It’s been a rough year in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee, where I have been a priest since 1984. Recently the archdiocese announced the closing of the academic program at its 151-year-old seminary. Its central offices-on forty-four acres of...
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Belief
A Memoir
N. John Hall
Frederic C. Beil, $24.95, 256 pp.
_____________
Padre
The Spiritual Journey of
Fr. Virgil Cordano
Mario T. García
Capra Press, $17.95, 287 pp.
The public reactions to Mother Teresa’s letters, which disclose her...
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Dean R. Hoge, James D. Davidson
Recent studies point to a growing gap between the way American Catholic laypeople and priests understand their roles in the church. What is the nature of this divergence, and why has it developed?
In the years before Vatican II, most laypeople...
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James Martin, William McDonough
William McDonough
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Writing about the Vatican takeover of the International Commission on English in the Liturgy (ICEL) from bishops’ conferences (“Lost in Translation,” December 2), John Wilkins offered the rule of thumb he used when editor of the Tablet of London.
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Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Edinburgh has repeatedly raised doubts about mandatory clerical celibacy in the Roman Church. In 2002, just prior to being named cardinal, he went on record as being open to changes in this discipline and was...
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History & Mystery: John C. Cavadini reviews the second volume of Benedict XVI's Jesus of Nazareth
Ratzinger at Vatican II, by John Wilkins
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Sometime in the next few months, the Vatican will issue a much-anticipated document addressing the issue of whether gay men can be ordained priests. The policy is being written by the Congregation for Catholic Education in preparation for the...
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It is now almost a cliché to say that the sexual-abuse scandal of the last year is the worst crisis in the history of the American church. The sustained media coverage, subsequent disillusionment, and passion aroused by the scandal have no parallel...
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Robert J. Egan, Sara Butler
Sara Butler
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“Preaching to bishops,” a long-dead churchman told me years ago, “is like farting at skunks. You’ll win some battles, but lose the war.” All the more so, no doubt, the higher you go. His Holiness, Their Eminences and Excellencies—“Don’t cross ’em,”...
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In 1742, a Franciscan friar reported to Rome the remarkable news that a hitherto unknown Christian community had been discovered on a river island in Nubia, the region south of what had once been Roman Egypt. The Nubian church was thought to have...
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On the Wednesday after Easter, nine hundred Notre Dame students serenely walked into the DeBartolo Performing Arts Center to see a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Dinesh D’Souza. “Is Religion the Problem?” was the question. About two hours...
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If you work in bioethics, are of a certain age, and have a degree from the University of Virginia, colleagues are likely to assume you studied with James Childress, the legendary teacher who co-authored Principles of Biomedical Ethics, a...
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While I took Lent and Easter more seriously than ever this year—in terms of prayer, Scriptural reading, reflection, and discipline—I didn’t go to Mass. In fact, I haven’t been since Christmas.
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Many years ago I started looking for a copy of Joseph Ratzinger’s Theological Highlights of Vatican II, then long out of print. Copies were as rare and as prized as gold dust, but eventually I found one in Chicago, among the office bookshelves of a...
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Recent months have seen remarkable events and developments in the legacy of Katyn, the village in the woods of western Russia where, in April 1940, Stalin’s secret police shot some twenty-two thousand Polish military officers. Those killings have...
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I bought my first rosary in 1960. It was plastic and pink, and it cost a dime. Our Catholic school had mandated that all first-graders purchase a rosary from the principal’s office on a certain day. But when that day came, only three of us arrived...
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I respect Peter Quinn’s work, but along with Dimitri Cavalli (Letters, May 7), I must object to his treatment of the proposed canonization of Pius XII (“Why the Rush?” March 12).
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With a huge Cheshire-cat smile on her face, Joan pressed the white envelope into my hand right after Mass. The word “confidential” was written next to my name. I was puzzled.
“Open it later,” she said, with that grin that wouldn’t quit.
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As Mel Gibson and Lindsay Lohan have repeatedly demonstrated, it’s hard to look your best in a mug shot. Even so, I could see from the photograph in the paper that the years hadn’t been kind to the man whom I had last seen decades ago in the...
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The following sidebar is part of the longer article Fabricating Bernardin, by Peter Steinfels.
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To write a biography of Avery Dulles (1918–2008) is to enter the vitriolic conflict over interpretations of the legacy of Vatican II, the current state and future prospects of Catholicism in the United States, and the h
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On February 11, Pope Benedict XVI announced that he would step down at the end of the month. His reasons? Age and infirmity. His doctors have advised him not to leave Europe. But perhaps stress contributed to his decision. These are difficult times...
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John Wilson, Mary C. Boys, Peter Jeffery, Richard R. Gaillardetz, William L. Portier
[Editor's note: William L. Portier's and Richard R. Gaillardetz's are the final in a special series of stories we are posting as the cardinals gather for the conclave. All of the previous articles in this series appear below.]
William L...
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Of the many virtues associated with St. Francis of Assisi, humility was the first to occur to me as Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio stood before the multitude for the first time as Pope Francis. Popes are expected to be larger-than-life figures, but...
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It is a teaching moment that happens in every seminary. The professor has finished presenting some difficult point in theology, Scripture, or history. Perhaps the issue is that human language is inadequate to describe God, or that there are...
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Why are women excluded from being deacons, presbyters, and bishops in the Catholic Church? Are the reasons given reasonable and convincing? What can be learned from the testimony of Scripture and tradition? And what can be learned from the...
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Donald Cozzens, John C. Cavadini, Sidney Callahan
Donald Cozzens
Many hope that the worst of the sexual-abuse crisis is over. Frankly, I fear the worst is yet to come. Consider the battered church of Boston and the not-guilty plea entered on June 11 by accused priest Paul Shanley, who claims he was...
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Few tools in the historian’s kit are as fundamental as periodization. By naming distinct stretches of time, historians give shape to history’s flow: the Dark Ages, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, the Age of Exploration (or, alternatively, of...
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Che Guevara once wrote that the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love. For some—especially those over fifty—that remark will call up the illusions of the 1960s, when many a callow undergraduate succumbed to the charms of revolution...
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By Friday afternoon, when most teachers are looking forward to the weekend, I am already gearing up to spend most of Saturday preparing my Sunday homily. My Sundays are spent celebrating Mass at the parish run by my religious order in Brooklyn, or...
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There are scandals and then there are scandals. Most are ugly, absorbing, and quickly forgotten. A few change history. The current flood of revelations about Catholic priests sexually preying on minors and the failure of Catholic officials to expose...
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The Catholic priesthood in the United States stands at a crossroads. An increasingly sophisticated Catholic laity fills the church’s pews and staffs its ever-growing parishes, and yet the church has failed to produce a corps of new priests to match...
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Fr. Richard John Neuhaus is clearly a man to be reckoned with. Counselor and confidante of presidents, cardinals, and popes. Conjurer of naked public squares, neoconservative triumphs, Catholic moments, “Great” pontificates, and “the authoritative...
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Later this year, the Vatican is expected to begin an apostolic visitation of U.S. seminaries. The visitation comes in the wake of the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, a scandal some in the Vatican attribute to the alleged lack of discipline or worse...
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On a spring day in 1944, two seminarians chatted about ordination to the diaconate with its commitment to celibacy, scheduled for the following morning in the seminary chapel. I remarked, “For heaven’s sake, John, if you can take the...
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I knew that I was called to priesthood before I knew that I was gay. The lure of sacramental mystery that resonated with my young soul, the ready acceptance I found in my home parish community, and the care and attention shown me by priests of all...
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Richard Nugent Hasselbach
As a former Catholic priest and a currently practicing Catholic, I find myself answering questions from people of all religions about the daily seamy headlines. They want my take on the situation. They want to know if I have seen, firsthand,...
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Each Easter sees a predictable resurrection of serious interest in Christianity from the nation’s usually skeptical or indifferent secular magazines and newspapers. This year was no exception. Newsweek featured a digitally enhanced portrait...
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As a Southerner, reverence for tradition is part of my inheritance. I cherish the traditions of my ancestors, of my region, and especially of my church. Far from alienating me, an appeal to tradition tends to warm my heart.
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On the first Friday of every month, I join a dozen or so other priests for vespers, drinks, dinner, and fellowship. Two things make the group unusual. The first is that five decades of ordination classes are represented at our gatherings. The...
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No one seemed more surprised than Fr. Dominic at the letter Pope Benedict XVI sent to my Brooklyn parish last December. The pope asked the fifty-four-year-old Ghanaian priest, who had served at St. Columba Church for nearly four years while studying...
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According to Blackstone’s Commentaries on the Laws of England, in the first century AD the Roman emperor Caligula “wrote his laws in a very small character, and hung them upon high pillars, the more effectually to ensnare the people.” Twelve...
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The Catholic Church in the United States owes its sister church in Ireland a great deal. It was the Irish who first brought our faith to these shores in great numbers, providing the nascent American church not merely with faithful lay Catholics in...
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Playwrights and screenwriters have had several years to mine the clergy sexual-abuse scandal, but it is only with John Patrick Shanley’s Pulitzer Prize–winning play Doubt that someone has written something of lasting artistic value.
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Much is being made of rumors that the Vatican will soon issue a decree mandating that the priest celebrate the Mass ad orientem (“toward the East” and, presumably, with his back to the people). I would like to support that, but only if we take the...
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Cocktail in hand, I walked up to a group of three of my classmates at the gathering that marked the fiftieth anniversary of our ordination as priests. As I joined these men with whom I had spent six years of my youth, one of them, Frank, asked, “...
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Last year Jimmy Carter made news for having resigned from his church—after sixty years—because of its refusal to ordain women and its insistence that wives be subservient to their husbands. He had disassociated himself from the Southern Baptist...
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In his last years as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and from the beginning of his papacy, Pope Benedict has demonstrated a real understanding of the nature and scope of the clergy sexual-abuse crisis.
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Late in her life, the Vermont historian Abby Maria Hemenway recalled that, while she was a young girl in the early 1840s, she had a vision of Our Lady in a field behind her house in Ludlow. Not a common occurrence for a Yankee Baptist girl, you...
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In late October 1866, a young student and poet named Gerard Manley Hopkins boarded a train in Oxford and took the sixty-mile journey north to the industrial city of Birmingham. There he was received into the Roman Catholic Church by John Henry...
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In the summer of 1983 my favorite day was Tuesday, when Fr. Stu would pick me up at my aunt’s house and take me golfing and then to lunch. Fr. Stu was from Las Vegas, which may explain why he was the source for my knowledge of how a point spread...
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John Kalawa, the softspoken grandson of a Limba king, tells me, “I will come to collect you at 5:00.” “Fine,” I say. I don’t know where we’re going; I know only that it will be an adventure. In Makeni, Sierra Leone, everything is an adventure.
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I went to a Catholic school where everyone went to daily Mass.
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When the German journalist Peter Sewald recently asked Pope Benedict XVI whether the Catholic Church was “opposed in principle to the use of condoms,” the pope replied that under some circumstances the use of a condom could be a “first step” toward...
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Michael kneels on concrete just behind a row of empty folding chairs. One by one, others enter quietly and join him. A few kneel, others sit. All seem to be in an attitude of anticipation. They are accustomed to waiting.
The wail of a steam-powered...
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My monsignor uncle, Fr. Jack, and Aunt Gert, his sister, were something of a cliché in the Irish-Catholic universe in which I grew up: the unmarried sister who serves the priest brother, in this case as his live-in cook.
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The papacy is an institution that matters, whether or not one is a religious believer. The succession of the popes, all 262 of them, is the world’s most ancient dynasty.
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There is a quiet battle going on in U.S. Christianity about whether being a Christian is more about what one professes or how one acts.
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I meet him at a building at the top of a steep hill. A trickle of men, all of them clean-cut and casually dressed for the Berkeley summer, flows in and out of the doors as I stand there waiting, and soon enough, one of them walks up to me and says...
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In the fall of 1965, I worked in the final session of the Second Vatican Council. A young priest and doctoral candidate, I was tasked with distributing documents and collecting votes and amendments from my assigned section of bishops.
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On October 11, 1963, Bishop Luigi Bettazzi addressed the Second Vatican Council on the need for collegiality. He was the newest bishop participant, having been consecrated only a week before, and, at thirty-nine, he was also one of the youngest.
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In our 2005 series of articles titled “What Next?”, Commonweal asked several writers to look at the challenges the then newly elected Benedict XVI was likely to face.
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By resigning, Pope Benedict served the church well. He has spared it another prolonged period of mounting disarray. He has "humanized" the papacy, as Joseph Komonchak and others have pointed out.
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What do the Roman Catholic Church and the American political system have in common? Both are divided into factions that neither trust nor understand each other, and both confront a crisis of governance.
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Several Orthodox friends have asked what I think of Pope Benedict XVI’s resignation. A few are, like me, former Roman Catholics. When I mentioned Joseph A. Komonchak’s comment in Commonweal (“Benedict’s Act of Humility”) that the pope’s resignation...
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In winning election as Pope Francis, Jorge Mario Bergoglio defied the papal pundits, even though they should have seen him coming. His rise marks the decisive shift within Roman Catholicism toward Latin America and the developing world. In...
