Category: ESSAYS & REVIEWS & PAPERS & PRESENTATIONS
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Stephen Cranney and Stephen Bullivant – Where the Catholic Church is Growing and What It Means for the Future
Stephen Cranney and Stephen Bullivant Every year, usually without a great deal of fanfare, the Holy See publishes an exciting book with a boring title: Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, or the Statistical Yearbook of the Church. Basically, it is 500-or-so pages of tables giving numbers for all manner of pastoral indicators, and for (China and North Korea…
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Rita Ferrone – Leo & Liturgy
A new study group takes up questions raised by the Synod on Synodality. Rita Ferrone There has been so much carrying on in American media about the Latin Mass, you’d think the only important liturgical question in Rome is whether and how much Pope Leo XIV will roll back Pope Francis’s restrictions on use of…
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Richard Cain – Why Are Conservatism and Modern Liberalism at War?
Richard Cain Modern Western democracies exist in a state of moral civil war between modern liberalism and conservatism. Neither side can win, because each has become a distorted reflection of the other. Liberalism and conservatism, once complementary poles in a shared moral universe, now mirror and magnify each other’s vices. Liberals accuse conservatives of bigotry and…
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Jonathan Heaps – Things Will Get Better Before They Get Worse – Bernard Lonergan’s philosophy of history
Jonathan Heaps January 29, 2026 I was optimistic going into November’s off-year elections. Despite the Trump-led Republican Party’s dominance in 2024 and despite media chatter about a “fundamental realignment of American politics” that followed, I expected things to turn around once voters got another chance to weigh in. My optimism was justified. Not only did…
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In 2028, Australia will host the 54th International Eucharistic Congress, a global encounter with Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.
Be renewed, be transformed, be sent – come on the journey. Click on Banner to access official website ***
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Patrick Hudson – Patrick Hudson – Doctrine must proclaim the Gospel, Pope Leo tells DDF ****
Patrick Hudson At the opening of the dicastery’s plenary session on Tuesday, its prefect Cardinal Víctor Fernández invited its members ‘to intellectual humility’. The Church must proclaim Christ “without self-promotion or particularism”, Pope Leo told members of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). Addressing participants in the dicastery’s plenary session on Thursday,…
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Bishop Erik Varden OCSO – Update for NOTEBOOK – Trondheim NORWAY
To scribble in the margins of texts is an ancient practice. There are people, these days, who make an academic career out of studying ancient marginalia. Any exercise of reading is fundamentally conversational. The notes collected here are brief responses to impressions received, not just through books, but also through encounters, art, music, and films.
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Konstantin Kisin – The Man Warning The West: Trump Is Changing The World Behind The Scenes. *****
Political commentator Konstantin Kisin breaks down Iran’s turning point, how Greenland could reshape global power, why he thinks mass immigration must stop, and how Trump’s actions in Venezuela exposes Europe! Konstantin Kisin is a political thinker and co-host of the podcast TRIGGERnometry, known for his sharp analysis of geopolitics, immigration, and cultural issues. He is…
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Jonah McKeown – Why Do Men Leave the Priesthood? Why Are So Many Young Priests Leaving Ministry? ****
Formators and others who work closely with Catholic priests regret the growing number of young men who are choosing to leave the priesthood — but hard numbers on exactly how many have done so up to now have been difficult to come by. The Catholic University of America is seeking to change that with a…
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Dr David Ranson VG PP – AUSTRALIA DAY 2026
January 25, 2026 On 8 November last year, a small group of men stood outside the New South Wales Parliament dressed in black, their faces covered, their banners carrying the symbols and slogans of Nazism. I was in Rome at the time, but the shock of the incident stayed with me for many weeks. It…
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Steve Doherty – ‘MAGGIE’ – *****
This is the story of Maggie, our third child. It is of course dedicated to Claire, James, Elizabeth and Maggie. Love in all its forms. “Maggie” PREFACE“This is the story of how we begin to remember,This is the powerful pulsing of love in the veins.After the pain of falling and calling your name out,These…
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ANDREW LIKOUDIS – In the Footsteps of Francis: Ten Lines of Continuity in Leo XIV’ … ****
ANDREW LIKOUDIS Introduction The first words of a new pope are always read for signals. Pope Leo XIV told the cardinals plainly in his first address to the College, “I would like us to renew together today our complete commitment to the path that the universal Church has now followed for decades in the wake of the Second Vatican…
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William H. Pritchard – Formulae that Don’t Formulate
Ian McEwan’s duplicitous ‘What We Can Know’ William H. Pritchard In offering some commentary on a novelist as highly regarded as the prolific Ian McEwan, it may be useful to note the example of a writer of comparable achievement, John Updike, who died at seventy-seven, McEwan’s present age. The two novelists admired each other’s work…
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‘Who is My Neighbor?’ The ‘Ordo Amoris’ in the Bible
Jean-Pierre Sonnet, SJ The Holy Scriptures ask us to love our “neighbor” (Leviticus 19:18). But who is our neighbor? Is it someone who is close to us because of blood ties, ethnicity, nationality or religion? Or is it someone who is close to us by chance, a newcomer, someone who comes from elsewhere or from…
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Christopher R. Altieri – Consistory documents show cardinals cautious at start of Leo XIV’s reign ****
Christopher R. Altieri Crux proudly stands as an independent platform, but your contributions are crucial to maintaining our autonomy. Can you help us out? Consider this: the cost of your morning cup of coffee could make a world of difference to us. Just $3 a month from each listener would not only sustain our operation…