Catholic Church

By Tim Busch, USA Today - There’s a crisis in the Roman Catholic Church no one’s talking about. It’s not abuse. It’s not cover-ups. It doesn’t spring from Vatican infighting. It starts much closer to home, with the shepherds who guide the flock. Many good and godly Catholic priests are struggling with their vocation… I realized this in January after hosting a conference for nearly 200 American priests. At a similar event in 2019, I could tell that morale was low. It hadn’t been that long since the summer of shame, when the Pennsylvania grand jury report peeled back the curtain on terrible abuse, mostly during the 20th century, and former Cardinal Theodore McCarrick was removed from ministry for abusing children and seminary students.

By Christopher Manion, The Wanderer - At the USCCB’s annual meeting last November, America’s bishops considered updating their document entitled Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizens… The debate centered on the content of a letter introducing this year’s version of the document. On one side, Blase Cardinal Cupich of Chicago and Bishop Robert W. McElroy of San Diego sought to remove the depiction of abortion as a “preeminent issue.” Their proposal was criticized by Bishop Joseph Strickland of Tyler, who insisted that the term remain in the document, and Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., who cited the views of Pope Francis in endorsing the term’s prominence in the text.

By Jim Russell, Crisis Magazine - Recently, Bishop Robert Barron floated a trial balloon notion of having the episcopacy require a “mandatum” for Catholic writers who claim to be presenting the truths of Catholic teaching online… The question now facing me and many other concerned Catholics is a similar one: to write or not to write?... Is this the hill we should be dying on as professional writers who love our Church and wish to see its institutional human face more closely resemble the spotless Bride of Christ we are called to be?... After a lot of thought… my answer is an unequivocal yes.

Fr. Mark Goring, Companions of the Cross, Feb. 17, 2020