The Dispatch
Did Hans Urs von Balthasar teach that everyone will certainly be saved?
Whatever Balthasar’s position is, and whether or not it is correct, it isn’t universalism. […]
Vatican II
Essay
Making sense of Pope Francis on faith, evangelization, and proselytizing (Part II)
Editor’s note: This is Part II of a two-part essay; here is Part I. The Nature of Truth I argued in the previous section that Francis rejects propositional truth. On this view, the truth-status of […]
Essay
Fatima to Vatican II: Mary, ‘Mother of the Church’ and Our Loving Mother
The title of Mary, “Mother of the Church,” was officially promulgated alongside Vatican II’s Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) in 1964. It was instituted by Pope Francis as a liturgical memorial only last […]
Essay
The Crisis Behind the Crisis of Faith in the Real Presence
Not too long ago, I had occasion to observe in a piece for Catholic World Report (CWR) that a series of previous articles on the Brebeuf Jesuit controversy in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis were conspicuous […]
The Dispatch
Cardinal Etchegaray, Henri de Lubac, and Vatican II
Last week, Cardinal Roger Etchegaray passed away. Perhaps his was not a household name, but this very decent man made a substantive contribution to the life of the Church, serving in a number of different […]
Essay
Newman and the problems of Catholic intellectual history
Last fall I cheered the impending news of John Henry Newman’s canonization, for which we now have a date: October 13 of this year. October happens to be the month in which, after many years […]
Essay
Clericalism and the disappearance of popular devotions
Steadily they walked, well-dressed, serious, each carrying a staff or a lit candle about a meter long, even the children. Over the two hours or so that we watched, there were hundreds of them—men and […]
Books
Lament for the Liturgy
Fifty years ago this April, Pope St. Paul VI issued the Apostolic Constitution, Missale Romanum, which promulgated the Novus Ordo Missae, the New Rite of the Roman Mass. The Novus Ordo went into effect the […]
Features
Don’t know much about the Old Testament? Here’s the book for you.
Since its publication last year, A Catholic Introduction to the Bible: The Old Testament (Ignatius Press, 2018), by Dr. John S. Bergsma and Dr. Brant Pitre, has been heralded as an outstanding reference work rooted in exceptional […]
Essay
A True Antagonist for a Broken World: Faith in a Secular Age
I’m often asked by friends or by people who know that I teach Catholic Studies what I think is going on with the Catholic Church. It’s a long story and has changed. You have perhaps […]