Theoretically, all baptised Catholics are supposed to strive for sanctity. If you’re like most of us, however, you rarely meet someone who just seems to radiate holiness – not a faux saccharine piety, but the real deal. We’re talking about the sort of personality with whom, after an encounter, you walk away thinking: “I just…
Letter from Rome Last Tuesday made official a transition that’s been quietly underway for a while in terms of the Vatican’s response to the clerical sexual abuse scandals: Pope Francis and his aides are rethinking, if not the substance of a ‘zero tolerance’ policy, at least the rhetoric of it, becoming increasingly unwilling to…
Whatever else Pope Francis’ decision on Monday, March 4 to open the archives from the pontificate of Pius XII in 2020 may mean, there’s one preliminary conclusion that seems take-it-to-the-bank, no-doubt-about-it, slam-dunk certain. Here it is: opening the archives will not – indeed, by definition, cannot – settle the historical controversy about Pius XII and…
Letter from Rome Famously, Pope Francis isn’t one for spending a lot of time thinking about doctrinal questions or disputes. The Pontiff often mocks theologians for obsessing over the fine print of things, recycling a quote from Patriarch Athenagoras of Constantinople to Pope Paul VI after an historic 1964 meeting: “We’ll bring about unity…
Virtually everyone taking part in the October 3-28 Synod of Bishops on young people has said that the presence of more than 30 young delegates inside the hall has altered the chemistry – it’s looser, more informal, more pumped-up, and above all, more raucous. The young people, participants say, let you know immediately which speeches…
In a new interview, Libero Milone, the lay Italian financial expert who was named the Vatican’s first-ever Auditor General in 2015 and who resigned under murky circumstances two years later, asserts that a Vatican criminal investigation against him has ended with no charges being filed. Speaking to the Italian state TV network RAI, Milone said his lawyers…