Religion
Tall Orders
Seminaries have four to five years of post-college priestly formation to train men to be leaders of the small “corporations” that parishes have become.
'Spiritual Assault'
In the trenches of parish life, I am aware of how an ecclesiastical environment that produces wounded people can lead to a community's unraveling.
Inside the Seminary
Any college-aged man entering a Catholic seminary during the ongoing crisis of the priestly sexual-abuse scandals does so with a certain amount of self-...
Letter from Rome
The Holy See has publicly dealt with four bishops for committing abuse or trying to cover it up. But there has been no transparency on their status or whereabouts.
Obama's Breakfast Prayer
If a president says anything critical about what Christians may have done at any point in history, he's destined to be attacked for engaging in “moral equivalence."
Last Word: One of the Least
A story about becoming the aged and infirm Jesus has called you to love, or, "the tenderness of the Trinity playing itself out on another level."
Letter from Rome
It only took thirty-five years, but the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints finally recognized what almost every rational Catholic in the world had already known.
Letter from Rome
Pope Francis has taken steps to bolster synodality and wean the universal Church from its unhealthy obsession with Vatican centralization. How has he done it?
Not Ours to Mend
John Garvey wrote about our self-delusions, especially of control and autonomy, and our ways of propping them up, and his columns could be spiked with hilarity.
True Confession
I used to think something tragic had happened to bring a person back to confession after so long, perhaps a loss or grim diagnosis. That's almost never the case.
Right the First Time
Spiritual communion, yes; sacramental communion, no. Times may have changed since 1972, but have they changed so much as to invalidate Ratzinger's earlier opinion?
Picturing Mary: Woman, Mother, Idea
An exhibit pulls together an impressive collection of paintings, sculptures, and liturgical vestments to suggest the wide range of Marian images in Western art.
