Ultramontanism

Fearlessness and the American Bishops in Rome

For all its faults, the Catholic Church in the United States lives the New Evangelization better than any other local Church in the developed world.  Continue Reading »

Döllinger’s Unquiet Grave

The Pope and the Professor:  Pius IX, Ignaz von Döllinger, and the Quandary of the Modern Age by thomas howardoxford, 312 pages, $45 John Henry Newman aside, Ignaz von Döllinger (1799–1890) was the greatest Catholic theologian of the nineteenth century. He came of age amid a golden . . . . Continue Reading »

I Am the Very Model of a Modern Ultramontanist

I am the very model of a modern ultramontanist

I’ve been congratulated as an excellent dialogist

I have degrees from all the best colleges of theology

I do not know quite what it means but I reject ontology. . . . Continue Reading »

Things That Can’t Change

When the Second Vatican Council was putting the finishing touches on one of its key documents, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium), Pope Paul VI proposed that it include a statement that the pope is “accountable to the Lord alone.” The suggestion was referred to the . . . . Continue Reading »