In his pastoral exhortation “The Joy of Love” — or Amoris Laetitia — which he encourages us to review and reflect on in its fifth anniversary and on the occasion of the Year of the Family under the patronage of St. Joseph, the Roman Pontiff offers important advice on how parents should carry out such tremendous responsibility.
On the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2013, Pope Francis completed the work of the 2012 Synod of Bishops with the apostolic exhortation, Evangelii Gaudium (The Joy of the Gospel), issuing a ringing call for the entire Church to “embark on a new chapter of evangelization.” Catholicism, the Pope urged, must move from maintenance to mission: “from a pastoral ministry of mere conservation to a decidedly missionary pastoral ministry.”
Given everything else going on these days, it may seem strange that a 129-year-old encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, founding father of modern Catholic social doctrine, should have become a shuttlecock in the volleys exchanged by conservative Ameri- can legal theorists and commentators.
Thanks to the pandemic, it’s been two years since I was last in Krakow, where for three decades I’ve done extensive research and taught great students while forming friendships with many remarkable people.
The Holy Father, Pope Francis, issued a Motu Proprio (a document issued by the Pope himself which has a legal effect in the Church) on July 16, 2021, called “Traditionis Custodes” (The “Guardians of the Tradition”).
Brooklyn Priests marched in solidarity with the people of Biafra to say no to injustice, nepotism, terrorism, and ethnic cleansing by the Nigerian Government against the Indigenous people of Biafra.
My encounter with the widow with four eggs early on in my priesthood has taught me a great lesson in my ministry. That happened way back when I was sent to a mission area on an island in the tropics.
In an article first posted at Commonweal and republished on July 7 in La Croix International, Professor John Thiel of Fairfield University, while criticizing the U.S. bishops’ decision to prepare a teaching document on Eucharistic coherence and integrity in the Church, performed the not-inconsiderable feat of striking out four times (swinging).
I don’t agree that the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 entombed the Roman Rite in ecclesiastical amber, such that it forever remains (as one traditionalist friend recently put it) “the most authentic expression of the Roman Church’s lex orandi [rule of worship].”
Pope Francis’ tendency to use colorful expressions and abrasive adjectives in commenting on ideas, habits, and practices of which he disapproves have puzzled Catholics for years now.
