I NEVER TOOK a class from historian Frank Orlando, but the motto he placed in the faculty section of my college yearbook — “History is an antidote for despair” —has stuck with me for 45 years. It also seems quite appropriate at this disturbing moment in the life of the Church, so perhaps a history lesson is in order.
It has been said that St. John Paul II was our first “media” pope. His international visits attracted scores of media attention. Television footage of millions attending a papal Mass were awe-inspiring. In 1987, the Holy Father delivered a prayer for world peace to more than a billion people thanks to satellite TV. Media technology was helping to spread the Gospel message farther and wider than ever before.
WHILE CATHOLICISM HAS been embroiled in a crisis of sexual abuse and episcopal malfeasance reaching to the highest levels of the Church, Eastern Orthodoxy may be on the verge of an epic crack-up with major ecumenical and geopolitical consequences.
I SCANNED THE ROWS of baby food jars on the shelf, grabbed several in a clattering handful, and tossed them into my cart. The store assistant smiled as she rang me up.
In pondering the reform of the episcopate for the future, the distinction between maintenance and mission should be at the center of the discussion. Bishops who imagined their role primarily as one of keep-the-lid-on institutional maintenance are one of the primary causes of the McCarrick and Pennsylvania scandals.
In the midst of all the conversations and the sexual abuse scandals in the Church, many people are asking themselves the question, “Why am I still a Catholic?”
NOT TOO MANY months ago I was talking to a pastor of a different parish than mine. The topic of Catholics leaving the Church came up.
ANYONE LOOKING FOR a remedy for insomnia might try working through the Instrumentum Laboris (IL), or “working document,” for the XV Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, to be held in Rome next month on the theme “Young People, the Faith, and Vocational Discernment.”
THE TIME IS here. This Sept. 20-23, more than 3,000 Hispanic Catholic leaders and others from nearly every diocese across the country will meet in Dallas, Texas, for the V National Encuentro of Hispanic/Latino Ministry (V Encuentro) main meeting.
AS THIS CATHOLIC annus horribilis continues to unfold, perhaps some good news is in order; first, a little background.
