When Jorge Mario Bergoglio appeared in the white papal cassock on the central balcony of St Peter’s Basilica on 13 March 2013, few people – if anyone – could have predicted how the then 76-year-old Jesuit would dramatically re-energise the Catholic Church over the next 12 months. He had been profiled as a moderately conservative Read more
Sister Candida Bellotti turned 107 years old on Thursday, and she is believed to be the oldest living nun in the world. Naturally, she has a thing or two to say about longevity and living well. Born in 1907 in Verona, Italy, Candida joined the Camillian nuns more than 80 years ago and has spent Read more
The 20th-century Jesuit philosopher Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote: “The only task worthy of our efforts is to construct the future.” My concern today is how to construct a new future for women around the world through the global outreach of the church. The 6th-century philosopher Boethius reminds us that every age that is dying Read more
“Women in the church are more important than bishops and priests,” the pope insisted in July. “That’s what we have to try to explain better, because I believe we don’t have a way of making that explicit theologically.” Here’s the key point: When Francis talks about “more space” for women, it’s less about creating new Read more
The German bishops are engaged in a dispute with the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith over allowing divorced and remarried Catholics to receive the Eucharist. The congregation’s prefect is repeating the well-trodden path of common Catholic practice – the only place for a married Catholic is in a sacramental marriage and the Read more
Don’t cry for the Catholic Church in Argentina or anywhere else in Latin America. The church may have lost privileged status in many nations, and is dropping some market share to a rapidly growing Pentecostal movement. But the combination of increasing religious freedom and competition is also fuelling a Catholic renewal movement, and equipping the Read more
Since Pope Francis took office in March, almost everything he has said and done indicates that he is bent on carrying through a thorough reform of the Roman Catholic Church, beginning with the Vatican itself. Scarcely a month after taking office, he created an international group of eight cardinals to advise him on reform of Read more
The effort of some of our Catholic friends on the right to question or object or contextualize to the point of gutting the obvious import or even to demean Pope Francis’ happy penchant for speaking frankly continues. They rightly perceive that something different is happening in the church under the leadership of our new Holy Read more
Papa Francisco is full of surprises. You never know what’s going to come out of his mouth, but it often has something to do with what goes in. “Buon pranzo” (have a good lunch) has become his signature sign off. This summer, he shook things up in Rio by insisting that faith is not a Read more
When addressing the cardinal conclave, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio from Buenos Aires warned of “self-preferentiality” and “theological narcissism,” which he said would lead to a “sick” Church. He particularly criticized the “mundane Church that lives within itself, of itself and for itself.” Six months into his papacy, it is crystal clear that this Argentine cardinal, Read more