7+ hour, 34+ min ago   (346+ words) The Gospel this week turns on two words in the middle of a parable, and most of us read straight past them. Jesus says the king was moved with compassion, and the Greek verb underneath that phrase is built from…...

3+ day, 17+ hour ago   (1317+ words) Twenty-five years ago this morning, on September 10, 2001, Father Mychal Judge stood inside the quarters of Engine 73 and Ladder 42 in the Bronx and celebrated Mass for the rededication of the firehouse. In the homily, the FDNY chaplain told the men what…...

4+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1382+ words) On Tuesday, I published an essay arguing that Bishop Robert Barron contradicted Pope Leo XIV on empathy in the service of a MAGA culture war. By Wednesday morning, two clerics I respect had answered me on X, and their answer…...

5+ day, 7+ hour ago   (1082+ words) Donald Trump presented the Presidential Medal of Freedom to the family of Welles Crowther on Tuesday, standing on the Ellipse beside a 21-foot steel beam pulled from the South Tower, with Welles’s mother, Alison, and his sister Paige accepting on…...

5+ day, 10+ hour ago   (1230+ words) The pope clearly disagrees. Four months earlier, on May 11, he told a Vatican colloquium on compassion and empathy that the two “are not something additional or optional, but are a call from God to reflect his goodness in our daily…...

6+ day, 15+ hour ago   (1045+ words) Cardinal Robert McElroy stood in the pulpit of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle on Sunday, Sept. 6, and told a congregation of union members and parishioners that “no one intrinsically owns anything.” The Catholic Labor Network and the Archdiocese…...

1+ week, 19+ hour ago   (610+ words) The late Mark Shields once said that strong institutions seek converts and weak institutions punish heretics. Put another way, are we spending our time and energy making our communities bigger and more vibrant or smaller and more rigid? Pope Francis…...

1+ week, 1+ day ago   (1409+ words) Cardinal Domenico Battaglia of Naples has written the preface to a new Italian book on transgender people, and Outreach, the LGBTQ Catholic ministry founded by Father James Martin, published the English translation on Thursday. The book, Persone transgender: Scienze, teologie,…...

1+ week, 4+ day ago   (1418+ words) Pope Leo XIV released his prayer intention for September on Tuesday, and it asks Catholics to pray for the care of water. The video runs under two minutes, and it landed the same day Leo opened the Season of Creation…...

1+ week, 5+ day ago   (754+ words) Pope Leo XIV celebrated Mass on Tuesday evening at a garden altar inside the papal grounds at Castel Gandolfo, opening the Season of Creation on the World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation. The homily was short, and…...