St. Philip Neri once told a woman that as penance for her gossiping, she should scatter a pillowful of feathers into the wind and then walk about the town collecting every feather. The task was impossible, of course, and it emphasized that we can’t take back our words once they’ve been uttered. That’s especially true […]
Key to seeing the Holy Father’s message this week is reading again the opening passage of Matthew 18, read in St. Peter’s Square before the general audience. Distracted by the question of “greatness before God,” the apostles ask Jesus who would be the greatest. Jesus answers the question in a kind of rebuke, saying that […]
Scandal is developing around an American woman living in Ireland who claims to be a Catholic mystic but hides her true identity, misleads people, takes in millions of dollars and is protected by influential people. For the past several years, Kathryn Ann Clarke, going under the name of “Anne a lay apostle” has been travelling […]
The Archdiocese of Los Angeles, the largest in the United States, rang in the New Year with some disturbing news: Auxiliary Bishop Gabino Zavala had resigned in shame after publicly admitting to having sired two children with the same woman more than a decade ago. (I use the word “sire” intentionally, as “fathering” is something […]
Another day, another Catholic scandal – or that is how it seems lately. If you are like me, you are just sick of it, yesterday already. I felt myself reeling a bit with the news about German bishops, and needing a little balancing support, I decided to run a few questions by my friend Rod […]
A few years ago, when the news was filled with the reports of priests who had abused youths and the bishops who had been so derelict in their handling of the predator priests and in protecting the faithful, I remember thinking, “The problem is that they don’t believe. They don’t really believe.” I found myself […]
It is not news that in the last 40 years the Sacred Liturgy has been treated with a banality that has gone from the sentimental to the silly to the irreverent to the heretical, and back again, a few million times. Now, of course, there is nothing silly or banal about the Eucharist and other […]
