As interested parties conjure with the current Catholic crisis, the prevailing diagnosis in progressive circles is that the guilty party is clericalism–the culture and ideology of the celibate male priestly class that treats the Church as its own property and protects its prerogatives by all means necessary. And thus the solution lies in an enhanced […]

The most famous American anti-Catholic cartoon is Thomas Nast’s 1871 “The American River Ganges,” showing a squadron of crocodilic prelates from Rome attacking a group of children standing on the shore with their fort, a public school, flying the Stars and Stripes upside down in surrender. Today, thanks to Fr. Cantalamessa’s analogizing of current criticism […]

While all the attention has been focused on the ill-advised association of current criticism of the pope with anti-Semitism in Fr.Cantalamessa’s Good Friday homily, it is another Holy Week allocution by a leading Vatican figure that ought to worry anyone who does not wish Roman Catholicism ill. That was the unprecedented speech by the dean […]

Commonweal‘s judicious editorial on the Catholic crisis, including a swipe at the NYT and a sharp reminder for Benedict’s apologists. My colleague Ron Kiener’s remorseless flaying of anti-Israel propagandist Norman Finklestein and his promoters. Michael Barkun’s assessment of the anti-Rapturist Hutaree and its antecedents.

Forging ahead, NYT tells the story of the victim who brought to light the case of the German priest who was transferred, not punished, on Josef Ratzinger’s watch as archbishop of Munich. Meanwhile, the hot line set up by the Church in Germany for victims of sexual abuse to call for counseling was inundated: On […]

I guess an uncanonized dead pope is preferable to an undead live one. So Benedict XVI’s pal, Cardinal Schoenborn of Vienna, throws John Paul II under the bus for lack of sex abuse vigilance. Not a good week altogether for JPII, what with signs that one of his miracles didn’t happen and official admission from […]

So it was the Muslim head of the local chapter of the Michigan Militia who turned in the Hutaree Christians.

New York has traditionally been a far cry from Philadelphia when it comes to relations between the Catholic Church and the media. In Philly, a line of tough archbishops has a history of squaring off with the local press; a decade ago, investigations into the spending of then Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua resulted in a notable […]

Noodle kugel at the White House seder?

U.S. bishops defend the Pope!

Release Michael Steele from bondage!

Or, as the Texan said, “What other parts of the matzo do y’all eat?

Or call it ecclesiastical leadership versus the defensive crouch. In his Palm Sunday sermon, the Archbishop of Dublin, who has been the true stand-up guy in the Irish scandal, had this to say: The Church in Dublin is still stung by the horrible abuse which innocent children endured through people who were Christ’s ministers and […]

The Papacy and War against the ‘Saracens’, 795-1216 Normal 0 false false false EN-US X-NONE X-NONE MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:”Table Normal”; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:””; mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; mso-para-margin-top:0in; mso-para-margin-right:0in; mso-para-margin-bottom:10.0pt; mso-para-margin-left:0in; line-height:115%; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:12.0pt; font-family:”Times New Roman”,”serif”;} Far be it from me to suggest that the good folks […]

How big a deal is the new tsunami of abuse-and-cover-up charges that is washing over the Catholic Church? In its editorial yesterday, the National Catholic Reporter takes a maximalist position: We now face the largest institutional crisis in centuries, possibly in church history. How this crisis is handled by Benedict, what he says and does, […]