Two recent speeches by senior Vatican officials whose responsibilities involve wrestling with world politics suggest that some default positions need a reset in the Holy See.
Author: George Weigel
Notre Dame Honors Russia’s New Martyrs
It’s sometimes hard to tell at this time of year, but there is more going on at Notre Dame than football. Spirited debate continues about the university’s Catholic identity and what that means for everything from curriculum and faculty hiring to the campus’ master plan.
Wanted: A Synod of Affirmation
Pope Francis has called a special session of the Synod of Bishops, which will meet from Oct. 5-19 and prepare the agenda for the ordinary session of the Synod that is scheduled for the fall of 2015; both sessions will focus on the family.
Explosive Business in North Dakota
Catholics in the U.S. may soon know North Dakota as the cutting edge of Catholic higher education reform.
Regensburg Vindicated
On the evening of Sept. 12, 2006, my wife and I were dining in Krakow with Polish friends when an agitated Italian Vaticanista (pardon the redundancy in adjectives) called and demanded to know what I thought of “Zees crazee speech of zee pope about zee Muslims.” That was my first hint that the herd of independent minds in the world press was about to go ballistic on the subject of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Lecture: a “gaffe”-bone on which the media continued to gnaw until the end of Benedict’s pontificate.
Remembering the Great Fouad Ajami
In a year replete with devastating news, the June 22 death of Middle East scholar Fouad Ajami hit especially hard. For decades, Ajami – a man of genius, whom I was honored to call a friend – was an invaluable mentor in matters involving the Arab world and its often lethal discontents.
Celebrating the Covenant of Marriage
My son Stephen and I spent an unusual, albeit unusually moving, Independence Day:
Knowing the Trinity
Richard of St. Victor, a 12th-century Scottish theologian, is not exactly a household name in 21st-century Christian circles.
Recognizing Future American Saints
Most attention-paying U.S. Catholics are aware of the beatification causes for Archbishop Fulton Sheen and Catholic Worker co-foundress Dorothy Day.
Is History Really Over?
In 1989, as the Cold War entered the bottom of the ninth inning, political scientist Francis Fukuyama wrote a memorable essay titled “The End of History?” And the argument resolved itself in a straightforward answer: “Yes.”