Analysis

Let’s start with a surprising statistic: Pope Francis’ recent September 1st Message “For the Celebration of the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation” contains, by my unscientific count, thirteen references to “sin”, […]

One consistent theme marking Francis’s pontificate has been his desire to decentralize authority in the Church. His 2013 Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium spoke of establishing a juridical status for “episcopal conferences which would see them […]

Ever since the United Kingdom decided in June to leave the European Union, contending (and sometimes overlapping) explanations have been offered for a vote that stunned the world’s opinion-makers: a perceived loss of national sovereignty […]

A Dutchman of 6-foot-5 stature looked at me with a tilted head at an academic conference. “My grandmother used to tell me if I didn’t behave she would give me to Turks…you don’t look that […]

Until Jorge Bergoglio was elected pope in 2013, the most famous Argentine of modern times was an army officer and politician named Juan Domingo Perón. Perón served as Argentina’s president from 1946-1955 and 1973-1974. Although […]

Now that World Youth Day 2016 is in the past, the dust has settled, the many international pilgrims who visited Poland are returning home, and Krakow is cleaning up after and transitioning back to everyday […]

Despite Pope Francis’ initial plans, his visit to Poland for World Youth Day has been complemented by a pastoral visit to the country, including a meeting with the Polish government and president and a Mass […]

Defying predictions of what some anticipated as an “implosion” of the Society of Jesus in America just a few years ago, the Jesuits recently announced the ordination of 20 new Jesuit priests in the US, […]

In the 1960s, Popes John XXIII and Paul VI initiated a new Vatican approach to the countries behind the iron curtain, the Ostpolitik. According to its chief architect and agent, Archbishop Agostino Casaroli, its strategic […]

When Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, the first President of Turkey (1923-38), abolished the sultanate and caliphate following the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, did he imagine that the military he left behind would have to intervene […]