German Bishops’ Conference Continues the Search Mark Twain is reported to have said, about an obituary that appeared in the newspapers: “News of my death was premature.” Whether the quote is correct or not, the headline that said the Proposed Guidelines to Allow Protestants Who Are Married to Catholics to Receive Communion were rejected in […]
Ecumenical Corner Blog: Ecumenical News
Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church
Vatican I: The Council and the Making of the Ultramontane Church. By John W. O’Malley. Cambridge, MA /London, England 2018. 307 Pp. How did we get where we are? This is a question John W. O’Malley, SJ asks himself continually as he plies his work of church history. He had written two best sellers about […]
How do we know the Father?
Bread Broken and Shared How Do We Know the Father? Introduction The Priestly Prayer of Jesus (Jn 17:1-26) is directed to God the Father. In the first section of this prayer Jesus prays that he may have the glory which he shared with the Father before the world began. He prays that the disciples may […]
Ecumenism of Blood
Ecumenism of Blood: Heavenly Hope of Earthly Communion. By Hugh Somerville Knapman, OSB. New York: Paulist Press, 2018. 128p. The question raised by this book is rather simple: can the Catholic Church give some formal recognition of the canonization by the Coptic Church of martyrdom, at the hands of Daesh/ISIS soldiers? The question arises […]
An Essay on the Development of Doctrine
John Henry Newman. An Essay on the Development of Doctrine. Forward by Ian Ker. Sixth ed. Notre Dame IN: University of Notre Dame, 1989/2015. Kindle ed. Introduction Ian Ker in the Forward to the book makes a wonderful presentation of the question whether the Catholic Church has changed its teaching over the centuries. The Protestant […]
Mere Christianity
Mere Christianity. By C.S. Lewis, a revised edition with a new introduction (by Kathleen Norris). New York: HarperCollins, 2001.Pp xx, 227. Paperback C.S. Lewis was born on November 29, 1898 in Belfast, Ireland and died on November 22, 1963. In 2013 the 50th anniversary of his death, he was honored at Westminster Abbey as one […]
Joint Statement on the Commemoration of the Reformation
Joint Statement on the occasion of the Joint Catholic-Lutheran Commemoration of the Reformation Lund, 31 October 2016 «Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me» (John 15:4). With thankful hearts With this […]
Pope Francis Meets Patriarch Kirill in Cuba
The Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow (Russia) has not met with the Pope since 1054 A.D. …until February 12, 2016. The two religious leaders met in the airport at Havana as the Pope travelled to Mexico for an apostolic visit. They issued a joint declaration of thirty paragraphs clearly expressing their desire for unity, peace, and […]
Synod’s final document focuses on discernment in family life
(Vatican Radio) The Synod of Bishops on the Family completed its final working day on Saturday, as bishops voted on a final document and approved a statement on families affected by conflicts in the Middle East, Africa and Ukraine. Philippa Hitchen has been following the different stages of the meeting and talking to many of […]
“Today more than ever we are united by the ecumenism of blood”
Pope’s message to His Holiness Tawadros II: continuing friendship between the Orthodox Coptic Church and the Catholic Church Vatican City, 11 May 2015 (VIS) – Pope Francis has sent a message to His Holiness Tawadros II, Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of St. Mark, to commemorate the second anniversary of […]