Process, papacy, and accompaniment: It may not be too early to wonder how Pope Francis's handling of the Synod on the Family fared on these three considerations.
Francis has introduced the possibility that the spotlight of moral judgment can can be shone back on those who make the judgments, and on their very act of judging.
John Henry Newman once said of the laity that the church would look foolish without them, and from the beginning the synod did indeed look foolish without us.
Driven by poverty, Central American migrants continue to cross Mexico for the United States, the vast majority now making the journey almost entirely by foot.
Aside from restatements of the teaching on sexual morality, there were glimpses of how a spirituality of discernment could infuse the church in its mission of mercy.
Engagement rather than denunciation marked the synod’s formal pronouncements, a pastoral style deeply rooted in Vatican II, and embodied in everything Francis does.
The election of Justin Trudeau resoundingly closes what many observers view as a dismal era in modern Canadian politics personified by conservative Stephen Harper.
As a result of a recent vogue for feeling culturally embattled, the word “Christian” now is seen less as identifying an ethic, and more as identifying a demographic.
John Norris's new biography of Pulitzer prize-winning political journalist (and Commonweal Catholic) Mary McGrory is engaging, carefully researched, and sympathetic.
An account of the sexual abuse scandal at the elite Horace Mann school, noteworthy for the contrast with common impressions of Catholic institutional environments.