In recent days, some have voiced concerns regarding the implementation of social justice activities as part of the Diocesan religion curriculum. While social justice is certainly a buzzword in the secular world today, it is not a new concept to the Church.
“Why is Columbus so important to you?” That’s a question I get from many, especially this time of year.
As Major League Baseball begins its post-season, let us pause and remember the late, great Bill Freehan of the Detroit Tigers, who died this past August 19: a Catholic gentleman and a great ballplayer.
When I met Cardinal Agostino Casaroli on February 14, 1997, the architect of the Vatican’s Ostpolitik and its soft-spoken approach to communist regimes in east-central Europe in the 1960s and 1970s could not have been more cordial.
Pope Francis scored again on long homilies. In his meeting at St. Martin’s Cathedral of Bratislava, Slovakia, he encouraged bishops and priests to keep homilies short. At this concern, a big round of applause burst from the audience and echoed around the whole cathedral. H
Do Catholics “believe that human life begins at conception” — a formulation that’s become ubiquitous in recent weeks?
On Aug. 30, Msgr. John (Jack) O’Brien died after a long battle with cancer. Many people may not have known him, but when I was a newly ordained priest, I was sent to him for my first assignment. He was the right kind of pastor for me as a newly ordained, and I learned a great deal from him.
It’s a safe bet that “Mother Mary Lange” is not a household name in most U.S. Catholic circles. That unhappy state of affairs may change, though, thanks to a courageous initiative now underway in Baltimore, one of America’s most troubled cities. Who was the Servant of God Mother Mary Lange, O.S.P.?
In the summer before the Second Vatican Council opened, Pope John XXIII met with Cardinal Léon-Joseph Suenens in the papal residence at Castel Gandolfo. “I know what my part in the Council will be,” the Pope told the Belgian archbishop. “It will be to suffer.” Pope John was prescient, and not just because the Council’s opening weeks would prove contentious; shortly before Vatican II began its work, the Pope was diagnosed with the painful cancer that would kill him in less than a year.
This past June 25, Archbishop Paul Gallagher, the Holy See’s Secretary for Relations with States — usually dubbed the “Vatican’s foreign minister” — told a press conference that he and his colleagues didn’t believe that the Vatican’s speaking out publicly on the massive repression underway in Hong Kong “would make any difference whatever.”
