On Monday, November 14th, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) met in Baltimore to begin day 1 of its national meeting…
Roman Catholic Church
The Vatican and the Bolivarian revolution
Last month, Wikileaks released a confidential 2005 U.S. embassy cable that provides an inside perspective on the Vatican's views of…
World Youth Day reassessed
Two writers at the The Guardian enter into the conversation about this year's World Youth Day and the public reaction…
Of saints, separatism, and secularization (part 2)
In my previous post, I discussed the ambivalent legacy of the Catholic Church in Québec in light of the recent…
Of saints, separatism, and secularization (part 1)
Three weeks ago, in a province with the lowest rate of Church attendance in Canada, 50,000 people attended Mass to…
A secular humanist reliquary?
A curious, and fascinating, piece in today's New York Times on the display of Galilean relics at Florence's museum of…
Controversy over crimes against the Church
A day after the Vatican issued a new document revising the types of crimes one can commit against the Catholic…
Recognizing the reality of sexual abuse
Reuters reports on the Vatican's decision to "revise Church law on sexual abuse of children by priests, doubling a statute…
Sex, scandal, and the secular
When it comes to the Catholic Church these days, news headlines offer few opportunities for levity. I’m referring, of course,…
Being Benedict
The recent visit of Benedict XVI to the U.S. demonstrates once again the uncanny ability of the most influential popes…