Author: My Catholic Country

Inspiring Read Regarding Editor-in-Chief Shannon Mullen’s editorial “A True Shepherd” (Opinion, Oct. 22 issue): It was joyful and inspiring to read your editorial. You have reflected my exact sentiments regarding Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone and the late Sen. Dianne Feinstein. I am a member of the Archdiocese of San Francisco and reside in the jurisdiction of the late senator. I have correspondence from both Archbishop Cordileone and Sen. Feinstein that reflects their deep respect for humanity and each other, even when differing on topics such as pro-life. I am very active in the defense of life and consequently had contacted both…

Rockville Centre is one of six in the state to have declared bankruptcy; only the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Brooklyn have not filed for bankruptcy. In what it called its “best and final” offer to survivors of abuse, the Diocese of Rockville Centre in New York on Monday proposed a plan that offers $200 million to approximately 600 survivors of abuse, the largest-ever settlement offer made in diocesan bankruptcy history. The new plan includes an immediate cash payout of a minimum of $100,000 to claimants with a lawsuit and a $50,000 minimum to claimants without a…

The cancellation of the papal trip to Dubai is a blessing in disguise.  The cancellation is a blessing, even as the cause is regrettable. The trip to Dubai for the COP28 climate conference would have reduced the Church to an NGO and the Vicar of Christ to her chief activist. Catholics ought to pray for the Holy Father’s recovery from illness — and in thanksgiving that he is not going to Dubai. The intense inward focus of the Synod on Synodality for a synodal Church marked the death of the evangelical urgency of Evangelii Gaudium. The 2019 Amazon synod’s revelation…

(OSV News) — Efforts to meet climate goals must heed both the “cry of the earth” and the “cry of the poor,” said two U.S. Catholic bishops leading committees of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. “No government will be successful in reducing greenhouse gas emissions in the long run if it requires a significant increase of the energy costs of middle- and low-income citizens,” said Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady…

Henry Kissinger was a legend in foreign policy. Whether you see that impact as positive or negative, for better or worse, depends on where you stand on the political spectrum. However, the dividing lines from that era were not as predictable as the polarized lines of left versus right we are witnessing today. To be sure, Kissinger was despised, even vilified, by much of the political left, but he was also a source of friction within the right, with many conservatives disliking him and his policies. Before considering a few of those lines of separation, it must be said that…

(OSV News) — Gov. Greg Abbott, R-Texas, is expected to sign an immigration bill that would make it a state crime to cross into Texas from Mexico. Catholic organizations including the Texas Catholic Conference of Bishops have opposed the legislation. The bill, Senate Bill 4, was passed by Republican majorities in both the state House and Senate in November, making unlawfully crossing Texas’ international border a state crime separate from a federal one. Supporters of the legislation argue that it would combat unauthorized entry into the state by empowering law enforcement, while opponents argue it is unconstitutional and inhumane. Jennifer…

Pope Francis said on Nov. 30 that he is suffering from acute, infectious bronchitis and that doctors recommended he cancel his planned visit to Dubai this weekend to avoid the quick changes in temperature that would be involved. “As you can see, I’m alive,” Francis quipped at the start of an audience with participants of a symposium on health care ethics. It was one of nine audiences Francis had scheduled for Nov. 30, suggesting he was still managing to carry a heavy workload despite his illness. Francis, who turns 87 in a few weeks and had part of one lung…

Divisions in the German episcopacy recently came to the forefront when Oster and three other bishops — Cardinal Rainer Woelki of Cologne, Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of Regensburg, and Bishop Gregor Hanke of Eichstatt — boycotted a Nov. 10-11 meeting of a committee of Synodal Way leadership.  The committee was created with the intent of establishing a permanent synodal council of laity and bishops to govern the Church in Germany — something explicitly forbidden in a January letter from top Vatican officials to the DBK specifically approved by Pope Francis. While his decision to not participate highlighted divisions in Germany, Oster…

As word circulated in September that Pope Francis was about to release a second teaching document on the environment, speculation was rife that his instruction would essentially be a clone or “Part 2” of his famed encyclical “Laudato Si’.” As it transpired, “Laudate Deum” is not merely a repetition or addendum to “Laudato Si’.” The two teachings are distinct. Each is important in its own right. So, what has changed?The short answer is that circumstances have changed. “With the passage of time,” Pope Francis writes in the second paragraph of “Laudate Deum,” “I have realized that our responses have not…

On Nov. 1, 1950, All Saints’ Day, Father Emil Kapaun celebrated Holy Mass for the soldiers of his battalion. At that time, many, and certainly many of those gathered for Holy Mass, assumed that the Korean War was all but over, with the North Korean Communist forces effectively routed by America and her allies. Yet, in the early hours of the following morning, All Souls’ Day, something changed. Outlying military radio operators had picked up first that a new threat had emerged. It was summed up in one word that was repeated frantically over and over again through the crackling…