Whats We Need Now

Jesus’ last command before ascending was to make disciples in the way that he had forged over three years with his apostles (see Matthew 28:19). We might be tempted to interpret this mandate as a command to go and get converts to the Christian religion. Yet I would suggest that a critical distinction is in order.

On September 17, 1787, as the delegates to the Constitutional Convention filed out of the Pennsylvania State House having just finished the most consequential document most of them would ever sign, a Philadelphia woman named Elizabeth Willing Powel stopped Benjamin Franklin and asked him a simple question: “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” Powel was not a passive bystander asking a casual question.

The current debate over the Christian origins of feminism is a lot like the one over the Christian origins of America. It is argued that the Founders of America and the “first wave” feminists were mostly good Christian gentlemen and good Christian ladies, that they sought inspiration from the Christian Scriptures, that, therefore their ideas were essentially Christian, or at least compatible with it.

The Barque of Peter has set its course with characteristic confidence under Pope Leo XIV, whose encyclical Magnifica Humanitas provides what appears to be the defining orientation of his pontificate. In many respects, his project recalls that of Leo XIII.

The Church will celebrate the Solemnity of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus this Friday, June 12. This devotion has its roots in the 17th century. But devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus is more timely than ever because, as Jesuit Father John Croiset has written, “properly understood it is nothing else than an exercise of love.

In recent months there have been several articles in both Catholic and secular press noting an uptick in interest in the Catholic Church by young adults in the United States.

By Fr. Eric Banecker Article voiceover 0:00 -8:03 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade. I found myself with a free morning in New York City and decided to do some reconnaissance work at Saint Joseph’s Church in Greenwich Village. St. Joseph’s has recently been highlighted as a lodestar of a trend which more than the usual outlets have reported on in recent months: the spike in people—largely under 40—becoming Catholic. First: the walk, from 45th Street down to the Village.

By Larry Chapp Article voiceover 0:00 -15:42 Audio playback is not supported on your browser. Please upgrade.

The story of Father George Zabelka, the military chaplain who blessed the Enola Gay crew before Hiroshima, and who spent the rest of his life wrestling publicly with it, is a story that I only recently came across. Father George Zabelka was a Catholic chaplain with the U.S. Air Force and served as a priest for the airmen who dropped the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

As someone who has long labored in the service of the Catholic Church’s teachings on fraught sexual expression topics, I think I understand Pope Leo XIV’s recent remarks on Catholic sexual morality in response to a reporter’s question about a German bishop’s proposed same-sex couple blessings. On a recent in-flight press conference, the pope said: We tend to think that when the church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual.