Avery Cardinal Dulles

Cardinal Dulles’s address to the Cardinal Newman Society on November 11, 2001, in Washington, D.C. Continue Reading »

Saint Agnes Eve—Ah, bitter chill it was, The coach for all his sweaters was acold; The team limped weakly through the frozen grass, And bundled were the fans, a woolly fold. Numb were the passer’s fingers as his hold Embraced the ball and flung a mighty pass. It flew like cannon from a . . . . Continue Reading »

Benedict XVI, before becoming supreme pastor of the Catholic Church, served for two decades as a theology professor and then, for more than two decades, as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. His career, together with his many theological writings and doctrinal . . . . Continue Reading »

The New Testament is almost silent about the eternal fate of those to whom the gospel has not been . . . . Continue Reading »

The Oberlin conference on The Nature of the Unity We Seek, which met fifty years ago, in September 1957, marked an important stage in the ecumenical movement. For the first time, the churches in North America in large numbers committed themselves to the quest for Christian unity. The composition of . . . . Continue Reading »

During the second half of the nineteenth century, it became common to speak of a war between science and religion. But over the course of the twentieth century, that hostility gradually subsided. Following in the footsteps of the Second Vatican Council, John Paul II at the beginning of his . . . . Continue Reading »

Pope Benedict XVI’s 2006 encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, has two clearly distinct parts. In the first it deals with the nature of love and of charity, the highest form of love; in the second it treats the charitable activity of the Church. Most of the commentaries have focused on the second part, . . . . Continue Reading »

The importance of orthodoxy in the first sense is self-evident: Everyone by nature wants to know; the human mind craves truth. Particularly desirable is the truth of revelation, which comes from God and leads to saving union with him. Religious beliefs are right or wrong to the extent that they . . . . Continue Reading »

Like his predecessor John Paul II, Benedict XVI was present at all four sessions of the Second Vatican Council from 1962 to 1965. Whereas Karol Wojtyla took part as a bishop, the young Joseph Ratzinger did so as a theological expert. During and after the council he taught successively at the . . . . Continue Reading »

The people of the new covenant have a special spiritual bond with Abraham’s stock. . . . . . Continue Reading »