Catholic Church

By Phil Lawler, Catholic Culture - For far too long our bishops have papered over their differences, allowing confusion and consternation to fester among the faithful, in order to preserve a façade of episcopal unity. Now at long last, an American bishop has called another bishop (a cardinal, in fact) to account... Bishop Paprocki does not actually charge Cardinal Robert McElroy with heresy. But he does quote verbatim from the cardinal’s outrageous article in America, and he does question how those statements can be reconciled with Catholic doctrine.

By Fr. C. John McCloskey III (1954-2023), The Catholic Thing - I have written here on St. Thomas More as a role model for laypeople in the Catholic Church. The bishops, too, need a role model, however, particularly in these times. They are after all responsible for helping their flocks grow in holiness and for clearly teaching the laity the truths of the Catholic faith... They bear responsibility for what is taught in the Catholic schools in their dioceses and – critically – in the diocesan seminary. They also oversee the work of the priests in the diocese, and if necessary, have the duty of disciplining them.

By Julian Kwasniewski, Crisis Magazine - Of course, the family is not just a natural institution but a sacrament as well. “The effect of the sacrament is to make the natural bonds of marriage unbreakable, to sanctify the natural love of spouses, and to reinforce with divine assistance their natural efforts in raising their children.” These are not gifts given “to lay associations, to magazines, or even to parishes.” Nor are religious communities sacramentally constituted, Shaw notes. The implication of all this is that “The family is the ultimate bulwark of Christian society.”

By Matthew McDonald, EWTN News - What the Bishops Are Saying... The Yeses to the St. Patrick’s Day dispensations in 2023 can be broken down into simple dispensations and those that come with requests to practicing Catholics — typical verbs are “exhorted” and “urged” — to do something else in lieu of abstaining from meat. Examples include praying the Rosary, giving to the poor or not eating meat on a non-Friday during Lent.