Pope Francis may soon release his greatly anticipated response to a key bishops’ meeting on family issues that took place last fall. At that meeting, bishops discussed the church’s response to a host of issues, including some that are very controversial. The bishops were especially divided over whether the church should change its rules against communion for divorced Catholics who have remarried. Many American Catholics have been pushing for that change and others. More →

March 11, 2016

The 1965 Second Vatican Council declaration on the relation of the church to non-Christian religions transformed church doctrine about Jews and other faiths. Nostra Aetate had its roots “in the shame and realizations of Christians after the Holocaust for what has been done to Jews,” according to Rev. Dennis McManus of Georgetown University. More →

October 20, 2015

Miguel D’Escoto Brockmann, a Maryknoll priest in Nicaragua suspended by the Vatican for his leftist political activities in the seventies and eighties as part of the theological movement that was known for its radical embrace of the poor over the powerful, believes the Catholic Church under Pope Francis is “more attuned to Jesus.” More →

June 19, 2015

We set the stage for the October 5 opening of the Vatican’s two-week discussion and debate, called by Pope Francis, on the church and the pastoral challenges of contemporary family life, including topics such as marriage, divorce, remarriage, annulments, and cohabitation. More →

October 3, 2014

President Obama visited Pope Francis for the first time this week (March 27).”The principal focus of the meeting was talking about issues of peace, international issues, and also talking about how to help poor people, how to help the marginalized all over the world,” says Father Tom Reese, an authority on the Vatican and senior analyst for National Catholic Reporter. “This is an area where the pope and President Obama are on the same page.” More →

March 28, 2014

“If we had had 30 or 40 bishops in this country stand up and say, ‘I’ve made a mistake. I take full responsibility. I’m sorry, and I resign,’ we wouldn’t be where we are today,” says Rev. Thomas Reese, a senior analyst at the National Catholic Reporter. More →

February 7, 2014

Liberal Catholics who were hopeful that Pope Francis’s papacy would usher in sweeping reforms are discovering that the Church “is an institution that takes its time with major decisions, and none of this is going to happen soon.”  More →

November 1, 2013

Despite having sustained a serious head injury some years ago, Father Andrew Greeley, who died on May 29, 2013, was a priest to the end. “We know he is blessed and he’s blessing us,” said Greeley’s niece, Eileen Durkin. More →

May 31, 2013

“If he stresses the social justice teachings of the church, the very counter-cultural message of simplicity and poverty, that could really change things without technically changing any teachings,” says David Gibson, national reporter for Religion News Service. More →

March 15, 2013

“He may be the very guy to come in and reform a lot of the problems that are going on in the Vatican curia right now. And that may be one thing that the cardinals saw that led to his election.” More →

March 15, 2013