De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

 My latest article in the Catholic Herald, published here . Early this month, a colloquium was held at Boston College called  “The Way Forward: Pope Francis, Vatican II and Synodality” .  The gathering was the second meeting of this particular group of 80 participants to discuss synodality, the amorphous call by Pope Francis for the Church to “walk together”, to continue the reception of Vatican II.  In an  article   about this in  America Magazine,  the author captured my attention with this comment: “I confess that I was not as enthusiastic about the synod process as some of the participants when I first arrived…the concept of synodality is a bit confusing, even to seasoned Catholics, and the global synod process has struck me as unwieldy and ultimately not as representative of Catholic opinion as it is sometimes argued. One fact: Only 1 per cent of Catholics in the United States took part in the process.” This is the reality of a process which ...

In a wide ranging interview with the Jesuit publication America Magazine , Pope Francis has spoken about some of the key issues and criticisms of his pontificate as well as offering his perspective on female ordination, the abuse crisis and racism. Well sort of. If you can make sense of some of his answers you're a brighter man/woman than me. But it is interesting in lots of ways; the assembled Jesuits don't hold back in terms of the questions they ask and the Holy Father does give some interesting responses. Asked about the growing political polarisation in the US, the pope warned of a divisive mentality suggesting that to be Catholic is to always harmonise differences. He explains that the way the Holy Spirit acts is first to cause disorder (giving the example of Pentecost) and then to bring about harmony. “The Holy Spirit in the church does not reduce everything to just one value; rather, it harmonises opposing differences. That is the Catholic spirit. The more harmony t...

I'm not a huge fan of professional controversialist Milo, I find his confrontational style counter productive, but I know he does shine an interesting light on some issues (if you have no idea who I am talking about, you can glean some background here ). Very interestingly, he has reported (a couple of days ago) that he was sent a series of questions by America Magazine, the controversial Jesuit magazine which has celebrity priest-come-courter of controversy, especially heresy James Martin, as a contributing writer and editor-at-large. I have posted about Father James Martin on numerous occasions, here when he was called out by Archbishop Chaput for failing to speak with authenticity about homosexuality, here when Pope Francis appointed him to the Vatican communications team(!!), here when he called for the "entirety of the Church's sexual ethics to be rewritten", here when he said that Jesus learnt about His mission from various women he met during His pu...