The Church Visible
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April 13, 2015
To evoke lively conversations, ask why so many Catholics no longer go to Mass. Some people will cite doctrinal issues like birth control, divorce and remarriage, and sexual mores. Others will speak of their experiences of the church as irrelevant to their lives. Others will cite church scandals; and others, the fact that a priest, nun or another parishioner made them feel unwelcome.
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March 2, 2015
About 190 men and women religious professed perpetual vows in 2014. This class of 2014 includes respondents to an annual survey conducted for the U.S. bishops’ Secretariat of Clergy, Consecrated Life and Vocations by the Georgetown University-based Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate, known as CARA.
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January 5-12, 2015
Preparation for the October 2015 Synod on the Family may help the U.S. church face pressing problems.
The church faces a challenge of disunity, some of it from polarization. Threats to unity have crept into the church from adversarial politics that permeate cultural warfare and political skirmishes related to religious liberty, gay rights and the definition of marriage. At times one feels meanness within our walls.
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November 17, 2014
Every December Catholics vote with their wallet and not just at the mall. They do it when they give to the annual Retirement Fund for Religious collection, a 26-year-old venture to help support retired sisters, brothers and religious order priests in the United States. This year the national collection will be taken up in parishes on the weekend of Dec. 13-14.
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October 6, 2014
The Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops, October 5-19 in Rome, addresses “The pastoral challenges for the family in the context of evangelization.” It is preparation for the 2015 ordinary synod and it’s time to address the situation of divorced and remarried Catholics.