It was no accident that Pope Benedict XVI chose the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity to lift the excommunication of the four bishops illicitly ordained in Ec ne Switzerland in 1988 by the late Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre The lifting of the ban was a step toward healing the breach between Rome an

I do not know whether the practice can be defined as torture under the Vienna Convention and I am certain it is not mentioned in the Army field manual for the interrogation of suspects but it is time to bring back the pillory Pillories are made of wood and they were used as a form of punishment i

Nicole Winfield of AP has the story here nbsp And Catholic News is reporting that Cardinal Walter Kasper called denial of the Holocaust stupid From her story The Vatican said Monday that comments by a recently rehabilitated bishop that no Jews were gassed during the Holocaust were unacceptable

Kevin Rudd Prime Minister of Australia Today January 26th is Australia Day one of the two really major holidays that Australia celebrates 221 years ago today the First Fleet of British ships carrying convicts and soldiers arrived in Sydney Harbor to begin the British penal colony there T

The New York church lost another distinguished priest this weekend Just over a month after the death of Avery Cardinal Dulles and two weeks after the passing Richard John Neuhaus Msgr William B Smith died after a short hospitalization Msgr Smith was a longtime professor of moral theology at S

Joining their voices to leaders of other nations the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference issued a statement in mid-December saying that ldquo it is now time to isolate Mugabe completely and to remove all forms of moral material or tacit support for him rdquo Disease is making further i

Whither hope Last week I complained that Obama rsquo s inaugural address was all spinach and no hope and that it lacked an over-arching narrative His roll-out of the economic stimulus plan suffers from a similar problem The words may have been poll tested as Carrie Budoff Brown shows over at Pol

Dave Gibson at his blog Pontifications has a good roundup of the nbsp controversy over the lifting of the ban of excommunication of four bishops from the Society of St Pius X which erupted on the anniversary of the 50th anniversary of the announcement by John XXIII of the Second Vatican Counc

This video has been many Catholic blogs but it sums up the events of the past week with drama and grace though alas not with suffficient effect

Cambridge MA Just after Christmas I splurged on-line searching out at used book sites the seven volumes of Hans Urs von Balthasar rsquo s Glory of the Lord his wonderful and extensive reflection on the aesthetic element in our theological and spiritual knowledge our apprehension of the beautifu

Wow nbsp Here is the statement from Bishop Bernard Fellay superior general of the Society of St Pius X responding to the lifting of the ban of excommunication nbsp It reads in part I reminded nbsp him Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos that we were suffering much from the present situation of the

A reader has chastised us here at America for not offering a post about the annual March for Life It is a fair question I can only answer for myself but I have very mixed feelings about the March What I like about it is also what I don rsquo t like about It has failed utterly to make a differenc

A surprising and important nbsp story out of Rome today Pope Benedict XVI has lifted the ban of nbsp excommunications of four Lefebvrite bishops members of the controversial nbsp Society of St Pius X nbsp The news was relayed to us by Robert Mickens the London Tablet correspondent who has

Loyola Productions has just completed a new DVD called Who Cares about the Saints which is designed to introduce the stories of some of the most popular of the church s saints to a new generation With some of my own commentary coupled with terrific footage photos images and graphics the D

Last week after a long battle with cancer Professor Michael Signer of the University of Notre Dame passed on With him died a very special sensibility In Jewish-Catholic relations Michael was a catalyst drawing the best from both sides For nearly 20 years I have participated in the national Cat

Both Archbishop Jean Jadot and Cardinal Pio Laghi died this month Jadot served as an apostolic delegate to the United States under Paul VI and Laghi was nuncio under John Paul II In 1990 Father Tom Reese offered this helpful comparison of the two men and the legacy of the bishops that were appoi

With a flurry of executive orders and his personal attendance at the swearing in of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton Barack Obama has alerted the nation and the world that his foreign policy will be vastly different from George W Bush rsquo s On Tuesday as Obama took the oath of office you co

Just a note to let people in the New York area know of a very good conference day we have coming up at Fordham titled Ministry to American Catholics and sponsored by the Graduate School of Religion and Religious Education It will take place on Friday 6 February In the morning our discussion

In God We Trust may be the national motto but it hardly clarifies anything The more interesting question is In Which God Do We Trust and the inaugural festivities rendered a mixed verdict When Bishop Gene Robinson told the New York Times that he was horrified that earlier inaugural prayers