Editorials

Pope Benedict XVI, in his annual World Day of Peace message, captures the ambivalence of the present moment but also the appropriate Christian response when he writes:

"I invite you to look to 2012 with this attitude of confident trust. It is true that the year now ending has been marked by a rising sense of frustration at the crisis looming over society, the world of labor and the economy, a crisis whose roots are primarily cultural...

Undocumented or illegal?

The article about undocumented immigrants ("'You are not alone,' Hispanic bishops tell undocumented immigrants" page 14, Dec. 16) is so politically correct that I cringed as I read it.

First of all, the title, "undocumented immigrants," was a strong hint as to what the bent of the article would be. Why don't the Hispanic and Latino Catholic bishops call the immigrants what they are -- "...

We can easily view the seminary as some mysterious fortress or institution into which we shall likely never set foot and which has little, if anything, to do with our lives. On the contrary, the good news is that it is our place, and it has so much to do with us all.

The seminary is God's gift to us.

It has long been said that to measure the vibrancy and the heartbeat of a diocese, we can look to its seminary. It is our future....

The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that the dignity of the human person is rooted in our creation in the image and likeness of God.

The dignity of the human person is a primary doctrine of the Catholic Church, Archbishop Timothy Dolan of New York told an audience at the University of Notre Dame earlier this month. He added that it must prompt Catholics "to treat ourselves and others only with respect, love, honor and care."...

Over the course of 2,000 years of Christianity, the mission of the true disciple of Jesus has not changed. Today, no less than when Jesus first commissioned His followers to announce and to spread the reign of God -- present, powerful and universal -- Christians are to invite all on earth to the light of faith.

All too often it is mistakenly thought that this is merely the role of the ordained or those in vowed religious life. On the...

Once upon a time, if a Vatican document was greeted with snarky putdowns and outright dismissal, one might safely conclude that the document had something to do with sex and that the peanut gallery hooting it down was full of Catholic progressives mocking the (so-called) lame-brained celibates who produced it.

No longer.

Take, for example, the recent bile from some opinionated souls on the Catholic right when the Pontifical...