The World Meeting of Families in Philadelphia this September should be more than a vast Catholic “gathering of the clans” around Pope Francis – and so should the months between now and then.
Author: George Weigel
Keeping Catholic Schools Catholic
Will the Church be allowed to staff its schools with teachers who teach and live what the Catholic Church believes, or will the state try to coerce Catholic schools to employ teaching staff according to other criteria?
No Fighting God
Some months after my son-in-law, Rob Susil, died, a longtime friend asked me in a gentle but point-blank way, “Are you still fighting God?”
World Christianity by the Numbers
THE ANNUAL “STATUS of Global Christianity” survey published by the International Bulletin of Missionary Research is a cornucopia of numbers: some are encouraging; others are discouraging; many of them are important for grasping the nature of this particular moment in Christian history. This year’s survey works from a baseline of 1900 A.D., and makes projections […]
Ukraine: Confusion, Disinformation
TWO RECENT interviews in the National Catholic Register suggest that there is considerable confusion about what’s what in Ukraine. Those confusions reflect the success of the extraordinary Russian disinformation campaign that’s been underway for the past 15 months. They may also touch on the delicate, but important question of Russia’s attempts to buy influence in […]
Observing Lent, Day by Day
Lent is a journey – a journey to Calvary with the Lord and an opportunity to reflect on how well we’ve each picked up the cross daily (as instructed in Luke 9:23) and followed Him.
Unique Challenges for Vatican Diplomacy
The Vatican engages in bilateral diplomacy to secure the freedom of the Catholic Church to be itself in the countries with which the Holy See has, or wishes to have, diplomatic relations.
Nonsense on “60 Minutes”
“60 Minutes,” The CBS News “magazine” that helped redefine television journalism, prides itself on challenging conventional wisdom. No such challenge, alas, was evident in the program’s recent segment on Pope Francis, which aired Dec. 28.
Europe and Nothingness
In the wake of the horrific jihadist attack on the Paris-based journal Charlie Hebdo, the trope “satirical magazine” was regularly deployed to explain Charlie’s character and content. But that’s not-quite-right. And what’s wrong about it – when linked to the sentiment expressed on placards reading “We are all Charlie Hebdo”– suggests just how much trouble Europe […]
Owning Our Baptism
THE TRANSFER OF the celebration of the Epiphany to a Sunday from Jan. 6 (the solemnity’s traditional date), and the elimination of Sundays-after-Epiphany in favor of the ill- named Sundays of “Ordinary Time,” has made a hash of the Christmas liturgical season, as I suggested in my book, “Evangelical Catholicism.” Still, the liturgical calendar of […]