As Archbishop, Benedict Focused on Doctrine
By KATRIN BENNHOLD and NICHOLAS KULISH
Published: March 27, 2010

The New York Times and Pope Benedict XVI: How it looks to an American in the Vatican
By Cardinal William J. Levada
Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith

Vatican Official Defends Pope’s Handling of CaseBy ( Read more... )

My mentor from my Master's work at Notre Dame, Professor John Cavadini, has just had his excellence recognized in a pair of distinctive ways, I just found out from a Notre Dame mailing. The first is the biggie, being a theological position of some significance. The second is more fun, especially for a scholar of - among other cool persons - ( Read more... )

Huh. I'm always curious and interested to hear or read a story about the way in which the news media conveys news to us, because any reasonably-informed person in our media world (here I mean "media" in the broad sense) knows that the method can have as much impact as the content of what is reported. While I am aware of the difference in the ( Read more... )

The big theological news of the day - or the last several days - is really the new social justice encyclical that Pope Benedict has published. While my areas of academic interest and competence are more in the historical and artistic kind of things I mentioned in my last entry, I have to sit up and take notice of something this significant. ( Read more... )

I have to thank jucundushomo for giving me the heads-up on this New York Times op-ed that James Martin, S.J. turned in. Tim was right on target in knowing I'd be interested in that I have complained in times past that the official canonization process in the Catholic Church has gotten corrupted by being politicized. Certainly, I merely have to think back a ( Read more... )

I was glad to see the new superior explicitly address the issue of troublemakers simplistically accusing the Jesuits of being a subversive group. That's been another one of those capitulations to our culture's political Left-and-Right polarity that has no place in the Church, whether in the hierarchy or in the laity.


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Did anyone pay any attention to the curious story about Pope Benedict XVI and the protests at Rome's Sapienza University this past week? I think that it might become one of those episodes that becomes larger in later history, as the significance of certain events gets taken as emblematic of historical shifts taking place at a given time. In this ( Read more... )

Googling for something else, I found this book review on the Carnegie Council website. of a Thomas Cahill book I'd never heard of on Pope John XXIII that I thought was engaging and worth copying into the notebook.  The anecdotes related about Roncalli in Paris are worth the read alone.   Thomas ( Read more... )

Cardinals Discuss Other ChristiansNov 23, 6:36 AM (ET ( Read more... )

Here's an interesting follow-up story to the overture made by Benedict XVI to Chinese Catholics in his recent letter to them. This isn't an official invitation from Beijing, but it certainly has some meaning in that it was allowed to be published by an official of the Chinese Catholic Patriotic Association. The feelers are definitely out ( Read more... )