Even if you are sympathetic to Catholic parents who conscientiously object to mandatory vaccinations, do you really want to live in a country where public officials determine what counts as heresy for religious citizens?
US Church
Posted inFaith and Reason
Paragraph 176 of ‘Magnifica Humanitas’ and Pope Leo XIV’s apology for the enslavement of African people
“Pope Leo’s formal apology and plea for forgiveness is long overdue,” Bishop Edward Braxton writes. Is it too late for the pope’s words to have an impact?
Posted inNews
Exorcist priest removed by Cardinal McElroy resumes prayer ministry in home diocese
A priest who was removed as an Archdiocese of Washington exorcist is relaunching his nonprofit deliverance ministry, while remaining a priest in good standing in his home diocese.
Posted inFaith in Focus
Fulton Sheen Bet on America. Some Catholics Want to Call It Off.
Fulton Sheen saw America as fertile ground for Catholicism. The offer still stands.
Posted inShort Take
Ross Douthat and the case for the Catholic lay intellectual
Ross Douthat’s greatest contribution has not been to conservative politics or even to Catholic debates. It has been to demonstrate that Catholicism remains an intellectually serious way of understanding the world.
Posted inShort Take
The lesson of the Ceuta migrant crisis isn’t about liberal border policy.
Ceuta is a symptom of a global problem. And it will get worse without action.
Posted inThe Weekly Dispatch
Catholic schools and childhood vaccines: A showdown between Florida’s attorney general and bishops
A showdown over vaccines between Catholic school officials in Florida and the state’s attorney general this week revived debate over the morality and efficacy of vaccinations.
Posted inCatholic Book Club
James T. Farrell was condemned by the church—and paved the way for American Catholic writers
James T. Farrell’s Studs Lonigan trilogy in the 1930s set him up as an enemy of a church that was aghast at his portrayal of human nature and, frankly, of the Catholic Church itself.
Posted inFaith and Reason
Thomas Merton: Monk. Mystic. Existentialist?
A lifetime of re-reading Merton has convinced me that the existential note ringing through his body of work is key, not only to making sense of his wide-ranging thought, but to any real understanding of the man himself.
Posted inNews
After SSPX schism, some Catholics urge greater access to the older Latin Mass
But the cardinal who leads the Vatican’s liturgy office said Pope Leo XIV would not be lifting restrictions on the old Mass.