Politics

By Jules Gomes, The Stream - The Catholic Church’s once greatly feared penalty of excommunication is now as farcical as it is futile... In 1521, Pope Leo X excommunicated Martin Luther. In 2017, Pope Francis issued a postage stamp honoring Luther and marking 500 years of the Reformation... In May 2020, the Vatican excommunicated the celebrity mosaic artist Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik for absolving a sexual partner in confession. The ex-Jesuit, accused of sexually abusing 25 nuns, had his excommunication lifted later the same month, supposedly at the intervention of Pope Francis... This month, Rome excommunicated Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò for thumbing his nose at Pope Francis and at Vatican II.

By Peter Pinedo for CNA, Catholic World Report - “Despite my Mamaw’s unfamiliarity with the liturgy, the Roman and Italian cultural influences, and the foreign pope, I slowly began to see Catholicism as the closest expression of her kind of Christianity, a faith centered around a Christ who demands perfection of us even as he loves unconditionally and forgives easily,” he wrote... It was “the Catholic part of my heart” that Vance said demanded he think about the things that truly matter, that he treat his son with patience, moderate his temper, value his family above his income and prestige, and forgive those who have wronged him.