Pope Leo XIV has been in the Petrine office for less than a month, but that hasn’t stopped tons of people from expressing their hopes for how the American-born pontiff can improve the Church and the world.
The world’s attention has been on Rome, as people eagerly await the outcome of the papal conclave, so I’ll use my monthly column here to offer my own thoughts about a new pope.
With Holy Thursday fast approaching, it’s prime time to commit ourselves to living out a “Eucharistic life.”
After all, when we celebrate this special Holy Week liturgy, we’re commemorating in a particular way that moment 2,000 or so years ago in an Upper Room in Jerusalem when Christ instituted the Eucharist, a mystery that we speak of as the source and summit of the Christian life.
It's not every day that a medieval theological concept enters the public discourse. But that’s what’s happened after Vice President JD Vance referred to the Latin ordo amoris (order of love) to justify the Trump administration’s immigration policy, with Pope Francis subsequently criticizing his interpretation.
These days, it seems like there is a high-profile conversion nearly every day. And praise the Lord for that. Celebrities have a lot of influence, so their embrace of Christianity can lead many others to think about their own relationship with God.
Anytime Hollywood touches Catholicism, controversy generally ensues. The new film “Conclave,” which is set amid a fictitious and fraught papal election, is no exception.
The Kashiwazaki-Kariwa Nuclear Power Plant is capable of generating 7,965 megawatts in an instant. In other words, the Japanese plant’s seven reactors can produce as much energy as 10,681,065 horses, 31,860,000 typically-sized solar panels, 2,342 utility-scale wind turbines, or 3,982 tons of coal.
When I was in seminary, part of my formation was volunteering with the chaplaincy office at the Veterans Affairs hospital. I would visit with Catholic patients, most of whom were no longer practicing their faith.
The Mass is all about Jesus, the bridge between humanity and God. But on a recent Sunday morning at my new parish, I found my eyes drawn to someone else: St. Joseph.
The name “Oxford” conjures up images of elite education taking place against the backdrop of ancient spires and an Earl Grey English sky. It’s the place, after all, that has produced Catholic geniuses like J.R.R. Tolkien and St. John Henry Newman.
Last month’s Eucharistic procession along Summit Avenue in St. Paul was one of the most beautiful communal Catholic devotions I’ve ever participated in.
Slowing down the convert-to-evangelist pipeline