Page 7 - Catholic Difference News Today

It was a two-week whirlwind that changed my life forever, that first visit of mine to Poland in June 1991. Looking back on it, I’m reminded of something H.L. Mencken wrote of a similarly transformative experience: “It was brain-fagging and back-breaking, but it was grand beyond compare — an adventure of the first chop, a razzle-dazzle superb and elegant, a circus in forty rings.” My first weeks in Poland were all of that, and more. For what I learned in dozens of conversations during th...

Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com. The Boston Pilot is a daily news Catholic newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts, covering news and opinion about the Catholic Church and Catholic life. We carry daily news from Boston, New England, US, the Vatican, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central and Latin America. The Boston Pilot is part of the Pilot Media Group, Americas oldest Catholic newspaper and the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com. The Boston Pilot is a daily news Catholic newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts, covering news and opinion about the Catholic Church and Catholic life. We carry daily news from Boston, New England, US, the Vatican, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central and Latin America. The Boston Pilot is part of the Pilot Media Group, Americas oldest Catholic newspaper and the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.

During his 1977 rookie year with the Baltimore Orioles, future Hall of Famer Eddie Murray got a piece of advice from veteran Lee May: If youve got talent, May told the 21-year-old slugger, fame cant help you, but the odds are itll ruin you. Murray followed Mays sage counsel and avoided the limelight. Father Hans Küng, the mediagenic Swiss Catholic writer who died at age 93 on April 6, didnt. Therein lies a sad tale. Hans Küng certainly had talent. His doctoral dissertation on Karl Barth, argu...

The Paschal Triduum this year seemed like a return from exile: Holy Thursdays Evening Mass of the Lords Supper, in church; Good Fridays Commemoration of the Lords Passion, in church; Saturday evenings Easter Vigil, in church -- what a blessing. Thanking God, I could only be aware of those for whom the exile continues, whether because of the pandemic or, like my friend Jimmy Lai, because of unjust imprisonment for the cause of Christ and freedom in Hong Kong. May their exile end soon. In his 201...

Ten years ago, last month, the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church took a striking decision: it elected its youngest member, 40-year old Bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, as leader of the largest of the eastern Catholic Churches, a choice confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI. In the ensuing decade, what appeared bold and even risky now seems brilliant and providential. For Major-Archbishop Shevchuk has become one of the worlds most dynamic Catholic leaders under exceptionally challenging circumsta...

On February 25, 2021, the U.S. House of Representatives could have addressed any number of pressing issues. The nation was in its 11th month of a pandemic that had already caused enormous economic and social dislocation. Schools remained closed as evidence mounted that online learning was disserving vulnerable poor children. Civil unrest continued in cities whose local governments refused to maintain public order and protect small businesses whose owners often live a hairs breadth from bankrupt...

As the names Ambrose, Augustine, Athanasius, and John Chrysostom suggest, the middle centuries of the first millennium, the era of the Church Fathers, were the golden age of the Catholic episcopate. The Catholic Church recognizes 35 men and women as exemplary teachers; 14 of them -- 40 percent of the entire roster of the "Doctors of the Church" -- were bishops who lived in that epoch. Theirs were not tranquil times. But even as these brave shepherds battled heresies within the Church and overbe...

Echoes is the opinion section of TheBostonPilot.com. The Boston Pilot is a daily news Catholic newspaper based in Boston, Massachusetts, covering news and opinion about the Catholic Church and Catholic life. We carry daily news from Boston, New England, US, the Vatican, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Central and Latin America. The Boston Pilot is part of the Pilot Media Group, Americas oldest Catholic newspaper and the official newspaper of the Archdiocese of Boston.

Thirty years ago, on January 22, 1991, Pope John Paul IIs eighth encyclical, "Redemptoris Missio" (The Mission of the Redeemer), was published. In a pontificate so rich in ideas that its teaching has only begun to be digested, "Redemptoris Missio" stands out as a blueprint for the Catholic future. The vibrant parts of the world Church are living the vision of missionary discipleship to which the encyclical calls us. The dying parts of the world Church have yet to get the message, or, misunderst...