Tag: Catholicism

Pope Francis Offers Guidance

On November 22 five staff from America Magazine, two Jesuits and three laypeople, interviewed Pope Francis on topics ranging from polarization in the U.S. church to racism, the war in Ukraine, the Vaticanโ€™s relations with China, and...

The Inflation of Infallibility

My recent essay on the doctrine of Papal Infallibility showed that many popes were mistaken about matters of faith and morals, proving that elevation to the papacy does not exempt one from human imperfection.This fact, I argued, raises...

The Befuddling Concept of Infallibility

Catholicism is the only religion that formally claims infallibility for its leaders. Infallibility is defined as being โ€œexempt from error in judgment, knowledge, or opinion.โ€ The term derives from Medieval Latin, dates from the early fifteenth...

Musical Therapy

I apologize to the โ€œburnoutsโ€ and those who wore โ€œRushโ€ t-shirts as fashion statements growing up.ย I judged you.ย I should have been judging me. In that era, if I rocked, it was to the Doobie Brothers without even knowing what a โ€œdoobieโ€ was.ย I...

Why I Remain Catholic

Not long ago a friend asked me why, with all the scandal and disappointment within the hierarchy in the Catholic Church, I havenโ€™t left and joined a church more in keeping with the Gospel? โ€œAfter all,โ€ he added, โ€œyou yourself have lamented these...

When the President Met the Pope

On November 1, All Saints Day, the Catholic News Service reported on President Bidenโ€™s visit with Pope Francis. Iโ€™ll begin with a background note, then examine what the participants said about the meeting, and, finally, consider what message it sent...

UFOs and Catholic Faith

Weโ€™ve heard about UFOs for more than half a century but they were always depicted as being explainable things like weather balloons or products of peopleโ€™s overactive imaginations. But now there is evidence that they were and are very real phenomena...