Conscience and the Sunday Obligation
When the pandemic hit the United States earlier this year, bishops across the country made the necessary but unprecedented decision to dispense the faithful from their traditional obligation to attend Mass every Sunday. Six months later, we are slowly beginning…
Theosis, Pastoral Accompaniment, and the Law of Gradualism
Back in January the Lord put on my mind and heart an idea for a theological essay that he wanted me to write. I don’t say that lightly here. Never before has something burned within me until I wrote it…
May we be profoundly shaken
For the past couple of weeks I have taken up Pope Francis’s recent encouragement that we read his encyclical Laudato Si. I’m ashamed to say that I’d never read it before, but I decided that now is as good a time as any…
Who we know God is
Recently I’ve been struck by a verse in chapter seventeen of John’s Gospel. Jesus is with his apostles during the last supper, offering a long prayer, and at one point he says to his Heavenly Father, “Now this is eternal…
The Living Bridge to LGBT Catholics
Earlier this month I attended a talk by Dr. Mary Healy, professor of Sacred Scripture at Sacred Heart Major Seminary, during the 2020 Encounter Conference on the topic of Christian unity. Dr. Healy proposed a wonderful image for ecumenism that I’ve been…
The insidiousness of the opposition
“Opposition to the pope is not new, but what is new is the level and intensity that is there…It’s the insidiousness of the opposition movement that I think is scandalous for us.” Archbishop Wilton Gregory, the new archbishop of Washington,…
“I’m still teaching the same things I always taught…”
In my spiritual formation as a young adult, the idea of a future schism–refusing to submit to the teaching of the pope–was presented as a “liberal” concept. The idea was that in the name of progress, some Catholics rejected papal…
A Response to Ross Douthat
Where Peter Is was recently mentioned in the New York Times, in a column by Ross Douthat entitled, “What Will Happen to Conservative Catholicism?” In the piece, he surveys the ways that conservative Catholics in America have responded to Pope Francis. He…
The lie behind rigidity
Picking up on what the pope said last month about rigid Catholics as well as the parable of the the Prodigal Son, I want to highlight a homily that the pope gave back in 2016. In that homily the pope draws our…
The Death Penalty, Doctrine or Personal Opinion?
I’ve seen a lot of confusion in the past year about the Church’s new teaching on the death penalty that was issued last summer when Pope Francis changed paragraph 2267 of the Catechism. One of the key misconceptions I’ve heard…
