Novelist William Peter Blatty, author of The Exorcist, has sent a canon-law petition to the Vatican, asking it to require Georgetown University in Washington, DC, to live up to its Catholic identity. The Jesuit university is Blatty’s alma mater, and his best-selling book and the 1973 blockbuster film The Exorcist were set in Georgetown. His Read more
The Catholic Church in Australia has said it will allow an independent board to monitor how it handles clerical sex abuse and publicly report on its compliance. This step is part of a reform agenda described as potentially “the most significant overhaul of the Church’s approach to clerical sexual abuse in its more than 200-year Read more
Evangelical Protestants are worse than Catholics in their response to sexual abuse, a law professor who investigates abuse has told a Religious Newswriters Association conference in the United States. “Protestants can be very arrogant when pointing to Catholics,” said Boz Tchividjian, a grandson of evangelist Billy Graham and executive director of Godly Response to Abuse in the Christian 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
A man I know said to me yesterday that I must be outraged about what Pope Francis is saying. I inwardly rolled my mind’s eye. Let me just tell you who this guy is. He’s a professed non-believer. A former Catholic. The worst kind, right? And he’s a bit in your face about it too, Read more
Tom Leopold is a very funny guy. He’s also a Catholic. He has been funny longer than he has been a Catholic. But being a Catholic doesn’t stop him from being funny. “I can’t go more than two lines without getting a laugh,” Leopold told Catholic News Service in a telephone interview from New York. Read more
The resignations of two bishops on child sex abuse allegations in the past six weeks and the Vatican’s handling of these latest cases has again prompted questions on how the world’s oldest monarchy handles controversy: It ignores it. In both cases – a nuncio to the Dominican Republic and, most recently, an auxiliary bishop in Read more
As a practicing Catholic working in the media, perhaps the five most frightening words I hear are “Pope Francis gave an interview.” They aren’t scary because of anything Pope Francis actually says; the former Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio spent decades choosing his words carefully as an Argentine priest and then prelate of Buenos Aires, emphasizing the Read more
This is not a particularly successful season for converts to Christianity. Often more respect is shown to those who “dialogue” from outside of the Church than to those who embrace the Christian faith and ask for baptism. But it is also true that conversions to Catholicism are more numerous than one might think. Departing from Read more