Statement of Cardinal Cupich on the Moral Imperative to Uphold Both Security and Human Dignity.

"The poor are not there by chance or by blind and cruel fate. Nor, for most of them, is poverty a choice. Yet, there are those who still presume to make this claim, thus revealing their own blindness and cruelty." – Pope Leo XIV, Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te on Love for the Poor, 14

This article really clearly lays out, plain as day, why Pope Francis put restrictions on the old Latin Mass and why Pope Leo is also concerned about how the traditionalist movement threatens the Church's unity. wherepeteris.com/straight-ans...

I've experienced four popes, and I've never *not* looked forward to a new papal document. Catholics should be receptive to the papal magisterium even if we may sometimes struggle in our consciences with some particular teaching. We have a pope for a reason: it's part of the genius of Catholicism!

Lirerally— He described a consistent ethic of life derived from Gaudium et Spes and affirmed by John Paul II, authoritative magisterial teaching, and named a climate crisis named by both JP2 and Benedict XVI. His critics are not serious people. www.cnn.com/2025/10/04/e...

"This episode has brought to light a serious rupture in the US Church. Collegiality and fraternity have given way to hostility and open conflict." wherepeteris.com/bishops-agai...

The consistent ethic of life has been official Catholic doctrine for many years (see, e.g., the encyclical Fratelli Tutti), so what Pope Leo said isn't surprising or new. However, many American Catholics have been convinced (often by online groups) that it's unorthodox. That needs to change.

"Martyrs today give witness to the fact that God has not abandoned us.... The controversies that roiled Romero’s time did not trouble the saint because he set his gaze on God, and the polarizations of our day should not trouble us if we trust in God fully." wherepeteris.com/pope-leo-xiv...

"Happy are those whose conscience does not reproach them, those who have not lost hope." - Ben Sira 14:2

Just horrendous that Charlie Kirk was assassinated. Our society is so sick right now, and this heinous crime will only make it sicker. And sadly I know that some people will try to justify it or at least wink at it. Violence is not the solution to our current social crisis!

I very much would like to see the clunky 2011 translation of the Mass fixed. share.google/3ybLeq0eLOeT...

"Injustice, violations of international law & the rights of peoples, grave inequalities & the greed that fuels them are spawning deforestation, pollution & the loss of biodiversity. Extreme natural phenomena caused by climate changes provoked by human activity grow..." www.vatican.va/content/leo-...

"The Church, as Christ’s Church, will certainly do what is most correct if she leaves behind her own state of knowing too much and returns into the primordial biblical situation, in order to perceive afresh the primordial meaning of her proclamation from the sources..."

“We are with the young people of Gaza. We are with the young people of Ukraine, with those of every land bloodied by war. My young brothers and sisters, you are the sign that a different world is possible, a world of fraternity and friendship.” - Pope Leo www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news...

Great essay about the development of doctrine. open.substack.com/pub/popefran...

The removal of three outspoken critics of Pope Francis from Sacred Heart Seminary exposes a deeper crisis in the U.S. Church—where dissent from the Magisterium is masked as fidelity and ideology masquerades as orthodoxy. wherepeteris.com/false-orthod...

While this man was praying for himself, I and many others were praying for him, too. And I thanked God for hearing those prayers when they were released. "The Lord sets prisoners free" (Ps. 146:7). amp.cnn.com/cnn/2025/07/...

The immorality and evil of Netanyahu's war—which long ago exceeded a just defense—is staggering. www.nytimes.com/article/isra...

“To all those who mistreated us, to all those who negotiated with our lives and our freedom, I have one thing to say, and Scripture says it well: Vengeance and justice is mine, and you are going to give an account to God (the) Father.” apnews.com/article/vene...

Batman #40 (exactly ten years ago!): the Caped Crusader as St. George

My reaction when CBS assures us that cancelling Colbert has nothing to do with anything.

People sometimes ask who made God. The answer is no one. "God is subsisting Being itself" (Aquinas, S.Th.1, q4, a2). Or, as theologian Paul Tillich put it, God is "the ground of every being." God isn't a thing in the world: God is the answer to the question why something exists rather than nothing.

"It is not [Christ's] pain as such that counts but the breadth of the love that spans existence so completely that it unites the distant and the near, bringing ­God-forsaken man into relation with God. It alone gives the pain an aim and a meaning." - J. Ratzinger, Introduction to Christianity, 291

President Eisenhower warning about demagoguery and intimidation on May 31, 1954 (in response to McCarthy). www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/ad...

"The bill, as passed, will cause the greatest harm to those who are especially vulnerable in our society... People will lose access to healthcare and struggle to buy groceries, family members will be separated." - Abp. Broglio, president of U.S. Bishops Conference www.usccb.org/news/2025/us...

New votive Mass just dropped: care for creation www.usccb.org/news/2025/ch...

Even linkedin gets it

"It is a poor thing if authority can only test its powers by insults to others, and if homage is to be won by terror; affection is far more effective than fear in gaining you your ends. Fear disappears at your departure, affection remains." - Pliny to Maximus (Epistle 8.24)

"The (bodily) resurrection was and remains, first of all, what God has done for Jesus. It was not an evolution in human consciousness, nor was it the disciples' brilliant insight into the meaning of the crucifixion—it was the sovereign action of God glorifying Jesus of Nazareth." — Raymond Brown 128

"It's important that we keep showing these videos, we keep talking about it because I still believe that on balance, the American people are not for this. We just need to show it to them." @timmiller.bsky.social‬ offers comments on the detention of a father of 3 Marines in Santa Ana, California.

"Something wondrous: the poor, the poor, slaves and the humble eat the Lord."

Pray for peace.

“Where a journalist is silenced, the democratic soul of a country is weakened.” - Pope Leo XIV cruxnow.com/vatican/2025...

How the hell did John Hughes make so many great movies?

"The cross is and remains a challenge to faith in God, even in his absence: in a God who does not sadistically torture man but suffers with him. It is a challenge to faith in Jesus Christ who was not the weak, patient sufferer but the courageous brother of all the poor, tortured and terrified." Küng

Father Hans Küng in 1974 well perceived the danger of a spiritual vacuum leading young people to embrace various totalitarian ideologies.

“The mass arrest and removal of our neighbors, friends and family members on the basis of immigration status alone, particularly in ways that are arbitrary or without due process, represent a profound social crisis before which no person of good will can remain silent.” www.usccb.org/news/2025/co...

I am watching colleagues' classrooms turn into Dead Internet versions of school. Teachers use AI to create lessons which assign work to students who then use AI to complete it before it is turned in and assessed by AI. No humans effort required to produce gradebook entries.

"The historical man Jesus is the Son of God, and the Son of God is the man Jesus." — Ratzinger, Intro to Xianity, 193 "There is not a Jesus of Nazareth who is not proclaimed as the Christ of God. There is not a Christ who is not identical with the man Jesus of Nazareth." — Küng, On Being a Xian 449

The American bishops have torn to shreds the Big Ugly Bill, making clear in a detailed letter to Congress why it's unjust. www.usccb.org/news/2025/us...

"In view of the substitute gods which dehumanize people (party, state, race, science, money, personality cult, power), shall we not be more ready perhaps again to accept the old truth that, without God, it is scarcely possible for people to become truly human?" - Hans Küng, On Being a Christian, 443

"The Lord sets prisoners free; the Lord gives sight to the blind. The Lord raises up those who are bowed down; the Lord loves the righteous. The Lord protects the sojourner, comes to the aid of the fatherless & the widow, but thwarts the way of the wicked. The Lord shall reign forever" - Ps 146:7-10

Pope Leo denouncing xenophobic nationalism.

"What had been a centralized, Roman, and European Church became a global Church. That certainly meant that the Church had to learn to make space for many different languages, histories, and cultural expressions." wherepeteris.com/pope-leo-chi...

"Obviously Jesus did not go on a journey into space. In what direction would he have ascended, at what speed, and how long would it have taken? ... It was a question of being carried up... The cloud signifies both the closeness and the unapproachability of God." - Hans Küng, On Being a Christian 354

Calling the growing hunger crisis in Gaza “increasingly worrying and painful,” Leo appealed for “the entry of dignified humanitarian aid and to put an end to the hostilities, whose heart-rending price is being paid by children, the elderly and sick people.” www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/w...

We increase "our technological prowess & military capability, and the growing deprivation of the poor has led to new ideologies of transhumanism, bioengineering, & eugenics. The sinful message abounds that some members of the human family are inferior." www.blackcatholicmessenger.org/the-true-nat...

Cardinal Prevost's (now Pope Leo XIV) speech on the consistent ethic of life. wherepeteris.com/pope-leo-xiv...

A timely and much needed message to begin his papacy. We live in a time of distrust, despair, fear, and hatred—the very antithesis of what Jesus stood for and preached. www.bbc.com/news/article...

"Francis's impact was his accessible & humble leadership, encouragement of sharing differing opinions, Ms. Frizzle-like enthusiasm for making mistakes & getting messy, moral courage against clericalism & corruption, & deep connection to & advocacy for the vulnerable" wherepeteris.com/francis-reme...