Posts Tagged ‘William Grimm’

Let’s not fail our biggest test

Thursday, June 2nd, 2022

Do you remember the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000? Did it make any difference in your life at the time? Has it had any lasting impact on your life and faith? Preparation for the Great Jubilee began on Nov. 10, 1994, when Pope John Paul II issued his apostolic letter Tertio Millennio Adveniente (As Read more

Social science research can replace no-longer-effective answers to no-longer existing problems

Monday, May 16th, 2022
synod

The Gospels contain quotes attributed to Jesus that do not always agree with each other. Sometimes the differences are insignificant, a matter of wording. In other cases, the versions radically differ from one another. In yet other cases, the evidence is strong that a saying is not what scholars call ipsissima verba, the very words Read more

Forwards to the first century

Monday, August 16th, 2021
synod

One of the first big crises the Church faced was one that Jesus had probably not anticipated. He certainly did not leave any instructions or even advice on how to deal with it. The problem appears in the Acts of the Apostles: “Now during those days, when the disciples were increasing in number, the Hellenists Read more

Fed up, but still Catholic

Thursday, July 15th, 2021
synod

One of the fastest-growing religious affiliations, or more accurately disaffiliations, is the large number of people who declare themselves to be former Catholics. Departures from the Church are especially pronounced among the young but are not limited to them. In places like Australia, France, Germany and increasingly in the United States, which for many years Read more

The unintended and horrible consequences of bad good intentions

Monday, October 15th, 2018
bad good intentions

In the early centuries of the church’s life, there were three so-called “mortal” sins: adultery, murder and apostasy. All three were sins against the life and unity of the community. They resulted in excommunication, separation from the community, until a penitential restoration of communion. By the time, many centuries later, when I was learning the Read more

Poverty is not a project

Tuesday, April 8th, 2014
synod

Do you recall The Great Jubilee Year 2000? For a few years before the turn of the century, almost every statement by a bishop or other church leader or organization contained some paean to the jubilee. The pope had called for it, and so all sorts of people either sincerely or for show acted as Read more

Francis shows his human side

Friday, March 21st, 2014
synod

When the head of an international religious order visited Japan many years ago, I was asked to be his translator. One evening at a convent of the order, the superior greeted a large group of nuns, saying what a pleasure it was to be with them for the visitation (shisatsu). I thought I had turned Read more

A normal priest for normal people

Friday, February 7th, 2014
synod

With the sometimes rabid exception of people at the ultra-traditionalist fringe of Catholicism who sputter at seeing him being respectful toward non-Catholics and acting “undignified,” Catholics are very pleased with Pope Francis. More notable, though, is the wild adulation he draws from those outside the Church, even more adulation, it appears, than he draws from Read more

Time for a major re-think on birth control

Friday, December 13th, 2013
synod

Prompted by Pope Francis, for the first time in history, Catholics throughout the world are being asked our opinion in preparation for a synod. Like many others, I have been answering the questionnaire put out by the Vatican in preparation for the Extraordinary Synod on the Family to be held next October. In fact, even Read more

Liturgy: Lost in translation

Tuesday, December 10th, 2013
bad good intentions

The German bishops are developing guidelines that would allow Catholics who have divorced and remarried to once again share the Eucharist. The head of the Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has said the bishops cannot do that because mercy is not a valid principle to use in pastoral care where the sacrament Read more