Letter from Rome In sports, people argue about who’s the GOAT, meaning “Greatest of All Time”. In basketball, is Lebron James the GOAT or is it Michael Jordan? In baseball, are we talking Babe Ruth or Ty Cobb? In college football, did Alabama Coach Nick Saban just become the GOAT by winning a seventh national…
Letter from Rome By all accounts, President-elect Joe Biden is a sincere Catholic. He’s spoken openly about how his beliefs have sustained him through personal pain and loss, and while there may be debate in some circles about how coherent his politics are with his faith, few contest whether he has faith in the first…
One certainly can’t accuse the Vatican of being part of what Italians call the “no vax” crowd, meaning resistance to the Covid-19 vaccines. Not only did the Vatican nip a Catholic form of such opposition in the bud recently by signing off on the morality of the vaccine, but on December 2 the Vatican announced…
Prison sentences handed down last week for three young pro-democracy activists, in tandem with the arrest of media tycoon Jimmy Lai, has been largely read as the latest chapter in China tightening its grip on Hong Kong and eviscerating the principle of “one nation, two systems” under which the territory was transferred to Chinese control…
Letter from Rome Within the last few days, two completely separate lawsuits have been filed in two different countries that somehow involve the Vatican. In the United States, four alleged sex abuse victims of ex-cardinal and ex-priest Theodore McCarrick are suing the Vatican, while in Italy Cardinal Angelo Becciu has filed a $12 million defamation…
Letter from Rome As both the United States and Europe face resurgences of the coronavirus pandemic and are moving towards new lockdowns in many places, it’s a good time to look back at the experience of the first wave in the spring and take stock of lessons learned. In Catholic terms, the issues back then…
Letter from Rome Almost 75 years ago, Arnold Toynbee described what historians are trying to find as they scour the past in his book Civilization on Trial: “The things that make good headlines are on the surface of the stream of life, and they distract us from the slower, impalpable, imponderable movements that work below the…
Letter from Rome Fans of the TV show The West Wing probably remember an episode in which an internal White House memo is leaked to the press accusing President Josiah Bartlett of timidity and compromising his positions to placate critics. In response, Chief of Staff Leo McGarry crafts a strategy of ‘Let Bartlett be Bartlett’,…
Letter from Rome Although the drama triggered by the sudden fall from grace of Italian Cardinal Angelo Becciu is far from over, things nonetheless have reached the stage where it’s also possible to stand back and ponder the bigger picture. I say “possible”, not necessarily likely, because frankly the story is just too riveting at…
Letter from Rome Watch Catholics at most parishes when it comes time for the homily at Sunday Mass, and you’ll see body language and facial expressions not unlike the waiting rooms of dentists’ offices and traffic court. It’s a sense of anticipation, sure, but not the good kind. Catholics actually love to gripe about boring…