Essay

Let’s not kill one another in print, virtual or otherwise, over the death penalty. That was a main point of my recent comments regarding the re-emerging debate on that topic.  We’ll see what happens as the debate […]

I’m here for the Formation for New Bishops’ program, more colloquially known as “Baby Bishop School.” My colleagues are about 150 other bishops from around the world who have been appointed in the last twelve […]

There’s emerging what some will call a new brouhaha and others will regard as a renewed rigorous discussion about capital punishment and the Catholic Church. The issue itself has been controversial in the last several […]

In a message to a gathering of bishops of the Americas in Bogota, Colombia, Pope Francis made a point that’s always worth recalling but especially timely now in this Year of Mercy. Sin exists, he […]

The month of May is sometimes called the month dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary. When I was a kid, that was certainly the case, and the highlight of the month in my parish was […]

Editor’s note: This essay was originally published on Ignatius Insight on September 18, 2006. It is republished here on the occasion of the tenth anniversary of Benedict XVI’s Regensburg Address.  I. Both before and since his elevation […]

Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, caused a rumpus earlier this summer by proposing to a meeting of liturgists in London that the Catholic […]

“A pilgrimage is for transformation.” Those words, gleaned from a pilgrim manual I received from my college spiritual director, capture the essence of my journey to Krakow, Poland for World Youth Day. Nearly a month […]

After perusing the latest Pew Study on why young people are leaving the active practice of Christianity, I confess that I just sighed in exasperation. I don’t doubt for a moment the sincerity of those who responded […]