Any sort of “creeping infallibility” that would attach the same level of authority to every papal utterance or document must be avoided. To fail to draw appropriate distinctions—whether between binding and non-binding documents of the ordinary magisterium, or between the development and the evolution of doctrine—is to dim the light of the Petrine ministry and impoverish the faithful. Continue Reading »
Will Catholics uphold the Church's teaching that the divorced and remarried cannot be admitted to communion, or will they reject it? Pope Francis has brought this question before the Church, though he refuses to formulate it so starkly. Continue Reading »
In going to Lund to participate with Lutherans in a joint commemoration of the Reformation, Pope Francis is following in the footsteps of his two papal predecessors, both of whom were deeply committed to the ecumenical pathway set forth in the documents of Vatican II. Continue Reading »
The real problem with the Argentine norms is their deviation from this larger and more fundamental principle: that grace truly sanctifies and liberates, and that baptized Christians are always free to fulfill the moral law, even when they fail to do so. Jesus Christ holds us to this standard in the Gospel. It is presumptuous of Francis—however benign his intentions—to decide that his version of “mercy” trumps that given by God himself. Continue Reading »
The conversation on Amoris Laetitia continues. All the language used by Francis of “integrating” the remarried into the Church originates in the reforms of Pope John Paul II. Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 7. Also featuring: The Hamilton Debate and the Marquis de Lafayette’s “Guns and Ships.” Continue Reading »
Even when our enemies are so corrupt and evil that there is no discernible sign of good in any of them, we can at least recognize that they are fellow human beings and children of God—however much they have violated His commands—and love and pray for them on that basis alone. Continue Reading »
Advocates of women in the diaconate will need to demonstrate that deaconesses in the early Church were “purely and simply equivalent” to male deacons. And then comes the properly theological question: the sacramentality of the diaconate itself.
Continue Reading »
The First Things Podcast, Episode 4. Also featuring: Catholic voting patterns and women deacons. Continue Reading »
A week’s worth of commentary on Fr. Jacques Hamel. Continue Reading »
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