Catholic Church

By Msgr. Charles Pope - God speaks to us through many experiences and images. Sometimes there are differing layers of meaning and we must carefully and prudently discern what God is saying to us. Prudence is not the same as caution. Rather, it is the virtue that bids us, in each situation, to keep in mind our deeper call and final goal.

Rev. Jerry J. Pokorsky, The Catholic Thing - The long history of papal triumphalism in the name of Christ came to a symbolic end with Paul VI’s retirement of the papal tiara (now on display at the Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington D.C.). Papal leadership in defense of Christendom also symbolically ended with Pope Paul’s return of the Turkish battle flag captured by Christians at Lepanto.

By Ed Condon, Catholic Herald -  We can bring the full weight of Catholic thought and action to bear, not on conquering wider society, but enlightening it. To begin with, we must abandon the misconception that the Church is a sub-section of civil society. The Church is a society in its own right, which can be considered apart from the civil sphere, and its mission to enlighten is served best when it speaks in this capacity.

By John M. Grondelski, Crisis Magazine - Bishop Franz-Josef Bode of Osnabrück, VP of the German Bishops Conference admits that the Church’s understanding of marriage “differs” from the civil—Germany’s Bundestag legalized same-sex “marriage for all” (Ehe für alle) as of October 1, 2017—but insists that the latter is a political reality and that the Church needs to read “the signs of the times.”