Archive
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Articles
The Pope’s Five-Year Plan
In their famous final meeting, Pope Francis told Cardinal Gerhard Müller that he wanted to limit the time in office for heads of dicasteries in the Curia to five...
The War Against Cardinal Sarah
Now that Cardinal Gerhard Müller has been removed from his post at the Vatican, the main target of the circle around Pope Francis is Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of...
Whence the Convert Problem?
I was initially perplexed by the recent dust-up over converts in the Catholic commentariat. It seemed an entirely Anglo-American battle, with no parallel in Italy. Yet upon examination, I...
Return of the Vocations Crisis
The recovery in priestly vocations seems to be over. Between 1978 and 2012, after the great crisis of the 1970s following Vatican II, seminaries around the world enjoyed a...
The Good Soldier
Pope Francis declined to renew the appointment of the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, on the very day—July 2, 2017—on which...
The Pope’s Power
Pope Francis was elected with a mandate to undertake institutional reform of the Vatican. But as curial reform has proved difficult, Francis seems to have made it a lower...
Waiting for Vatican Reform
Pope Francis raised great expectations when, on April 13, 2013, one month after being elected to Peter’s See, he created a council of cardinals (then eight, now nine) to...
