Coup de théâtre, as the French say, or colpo di scena in Italian, is an unexpected turn in a play or a film, often applied to real life when surprising developments unfold suddenly and to […]
Like it or not, the Church is a power structure—at least that she has a divinely given hierarchical power structure—and the cardinal electors are the ones who must choose the man to sit atop it, […]
Friends and readers have asked me who I want to be the next guy, and I’ve responded—artlessly and without any guile—that I have no ’druthers. I don’t know who will get the nod. There is […]
It is a favorite pastime of scribblers on the beat, and it is the job of the cardinals to be thinking about the next guy pretty much all the time. They are never more than […]
When Pope Francis’s coffin was sealed on Friday in St. Peter’s Basilica, Cardinal Roger Mahony was among the official witnesses. If you are wondering why that matters, well, suffice it to say Mahony’s presence sends […]
Pope Francis, who said he never wanted to be earthly head of the Catholic Church and frequently governed as though he were a simple parish priest, is dead. The 265th successor to St. Peter the […]
“Arbitrariness creates fear and mistrust,” the senior prelate said. “It undermines mutual trust,” he said. “Nothing can be relied on anymore,” he said. The senior prelate was Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, emeritus of Vienna and a […]
The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is working—slowly—toward a full penal trial for the disgraced former celebrity artist-priest, Fr. Marko Rupnik (olim Fr. Marko Rupnik SJ), an accused abuser of dozens of victims, most of them […]
Two appointments made big news out of the Vatican this week, one to the leadership of the US capital see and the other to the top spot at the Vatican department tasked with overseeing religious […]
Ianus bifrons—two-faced Janus—was the Roman god of liminal spaces, doorways, beginnings and endings, and transitions in general. So, here are some “January” reflections in both the calendar and the etymological senses of the term: Three […]
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