Father Knows Best: Should I go to seminary?
Is seminary the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet? Is it where God is calling you to be? Or is that place somewhere else for you?
Archives
COMMENTARY: Where is God when evil strikes?
(RNS) There is, alas, no good answer. Unless, that is, believers can arrive at a deeper understanding of God’s omnipotence.
Pope Francis: God redeemed everyone, ‘not just Catholics’
(RNS) In remarks that may prompt a theological debate about the nature of salvation, Pope Francis declared that God “has redeemed all of us, all of us, with the Blood of Christ: all of us, not just Catholics. Everyone!”
U.S. missionary doctor suspended after challenging cardinal, nuns
NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) The New York-based Maryknoll Fathers and Brothers suspended the Rev. Dr. William Charles Fryda after he refused to drop a case he filed three years ago against Kenya’s top cardinal and a group of nuns over control of two missionary hospitals.
REFLECTION: Filling in the missing demographic
A young Latino pastor celebrates the church that allows everyone to be whoever they happen to be, instead of playing the part of the underrepresented demographic.
Survey shows Catholic priests don’t like Mass changes
(RNS) Nothing can upset the folks in the pews as much as changing the liturgy that they’re used to, and that seemed likely to be the case when the Vatican ordered revisions to the familiar prayers of the Catholic Mass. But now, more than a year after the changes took effect, a survey of American priests shows that they are more disturbed by the innovations than their flock.
N.J. priest faces judge for violating ban on access to children
HACKENSACK, N.J. (RNS) Wearing a bright orange prison jumpsuit, the priest at the center of the furor in the Archdiocese in Newark made his first court appearance on Tuesday on charges he violated a court-sanctioned ban on working with children.
Godless funerals thrive in ‘post-Catholic’ Ireland
DUBLIN (RNS) After 32 years as an interior designer, Patricia Wojnar went back to school for a master’s degree in bereavement studies, a hot commodity in Ireland’s “post-Catholic” economy that features growing markets for wedding and funeral officiants who aren’t associated with the scandal-scarred Catholic Church.
COMMENTARY: The revolution is upon us
(RNS) Religious historians say that every 500 years, Christianity goes through a “massive transition,” as Phyllis Tickle puts it. We aren’t likely to comprehend this latest transition until it is further along. But two things are clear: Christianity in North America is being freed from its own roots, and Christianity no longer controls the flow.
(Presbyterian) Church of Scotland OK’s gay ministers
CANTERBURY, England (RNS) The move would allow openly gay clergy in the Church of Scotland, but conservative parishes that don’t agree would be allowed to opt out.
