Father Zifac: make room for the unfit/misfit
The gospel is a story about ordinary life – someone hard of hearing, with poor speech, disabilities that challenge us. If you ever had a speech impediment or the difficulty of deafness you’d know the distress it can cause. Jesus was distressed at the suffering of this man. Jesus cares in his heart. Most of […]
The Perenniality of Christian Martyrdom
Before canonizations became centralized under the papacy, the most common factor that made a canonized saint of a Christian was what Catholic tradition refers to as odium fidei – hatred for the faith! After the so-called Edict of Milan in 313 AD which made Christianity the de-facto religion of the empire, sainthood came to be […]
Catholicism and the Political Order
When Joseph Aloysius Ratzinger was invited to address the Bundestag, the German Parliament, history was in the making. It was the first time in the history of the German nation that a Supreme Pontiff mounted the rostrum of the Reichstag Building in Berlin. What will Ratzinger say to these elected officials, comprised of mostly Catholics […]
Catholicism and Irrational Public Power
The Gospel of John opens with the enigmatic faith of the community of the beloved disciple: “In the beginning was the word.” (John 1:1). Catholic exegesis has often interpreted these terse words of John’s gospel in the light of the Genesis account of creation, in which the creative Word of YHWH brought forth order out […]
The Popes and the Jews
The April 27th twin canonizations of John XXIII and John Paul II have stimulated considerable activity in church historians and theologians. What unites these popes? What separates them? The responses are varied, consequent on the perspective chosen. This writer is convinced that a unifying factor between these two popes is their positive attitude toward the […]
Benedict the Brave: The Regensburg Address Ten Years Later
by James Day, for Catholic World Report On September 12, 2006, Pope Benedict XVI took to the dais of the University of Regensburg’s Aula Magna to offer a few “memories and reflections.” Contrary to the resulting rebukes, the 79-year-old pontiff knew exactly what he was doing. Ten years ago Pope Benedict XVI took to the […]
Why Christians Must Be Strangers
The 2nd century Letter to Diognetus has this beautiful and challenging description of Christians: “The difference between Christians and the rest of men and women is neither in country, not in language, nor in customs. They dwell in their own fatherlands, but as temporary inhabitants. They take part in all things as citizens, while enduring […]
The Goal of “Ordinary Time”
One of the beauties of Catholicism is the centrality of seasons in the religious and spiritual imagination in the Catholic consciousness. We begin the Liturgical Year with the First Sunday of Advent, then celebrate Christmas, move over to Lent and get to the apex at Easter. Sandwiched in between these four seasons is what the […]
The Church and the Clown
Joseph Ratzinger once recounted an incident he had as a young priest in the company of the famous Joseph Frings, Cardinal Archbishop of Cologne. The context was shortly before the German bishops were to leave for the Second Vatican Council. The German episcopacy had decided to meet to harness their thoughts together in the face […]
The Church in Africa and the 2015 Synod on the Family
There are an estimated 1.2 billion Roman Catholics in the world, according to Vatican figures. More than 40% of the world’s Catholics live in Latin America – but Africa has seen the biggest growth in Catholic congregations in recent years. At the start of the 20th century, Africa had about 3 million Catholics. Today, a […]