From Christendom times to apostolic times

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent book is The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and his new book, Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences …

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President Biden and a Catholic Inflection Point

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. Catholics who take this apostolic teaching seriously will understand that our first obligation toward our brother in Christ, President Joseph R. Biden, Jr., is to be in Christian solidarity with him through prayer. We pray for his health, strength, and courage. We pray that he be granted the gift Solomon asked of God: wisdom in governance. We pray for his deepening conversion to Christ. Solidarity in prayer is the first duty of American Catholics toward the …

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Archbishop Jose Gomez: A Profile in Episcopal Courage

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. During their annual meeting in November of last year, a critical mass of the Catholic bishops of the United States recognized that Joe Biden’s election to the presidency had brought the Church to a critical point. The president-elect had long spoken, and with evident sincerity, about the ways in which his Catholic faith sustained him in times of great suffering, including the deaths of his first wife and his son. He regularly attended Mass and was …

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The Challenge of Eucharistic Coherence

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. In his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope St. John Paul II invited Catholics to “rekindle” our sense of “Eucharistic amazement,” for “the Church draws her life from the Eucharist,” which “recapitulates the heart of the mystery of the Church”—Christ’s glorified, abiding presence with, in, and through his people, fulfilling his promise to remain with us “to the close of the age” (Matthew 28:20). In the Eucharist, the Church meets her Lord “with unique intensity.” Thus the celebration …

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Catholic coherence, Catholic integrity

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington, D.C.’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. In 2007, the bishops of Latin America and the Caribbean completed their fifth general conference with a final report, known from the Brazilian city where they met as the “Aparecida Document.” Its principal authors included Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio, S.J., then the archbishop of Buenos Aires. Thanks to the efforts of the future pope and others, the Aparecida Document remains an exemplary description of what it means to be the Church of the New Evangelization—and not …

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George Weigel: Cardinal Cupich’s Criticisms of Archbishop Gomez are Baseless

Weigel argued that Archbishop Gomez releasing a statement on the inauguration was in keeping with the recommendations from the Working Group on Engaging the New Administration created by the bishops at their November 2020 meeting. CNANationJanuary 23, 2021 WASHINGTON — Archbishop Jose Gomez, president of the U.S. bishops’ conference, showed courage in releasing a statement on the day of President Joe Biden’s inauguration despite opposition from within the conference, said papal biographer and longtime Church observer George Weigel. Weigel said Archbishop Gomez displayed “episcopal courage” at a time when others demanded “a reprise of the accommodationist approach to Catholic public …

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Joe Biden Eats and Drinks His Own Spiritual Death

By Austin Ruse Austin Ruse is a contributing editor to Crisis Magazine. His next book, Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Faithful Catholic, is out from Sophia Institute Press on March 19. You can follow him on Twitter @austinruse. Yesterday morning at the grand Cathedral of St. Matthew in Washington D.C., Joe Biden ate and drank his own spiritual death. That he received the Holy Eucharist from the hands of a Cardinal of the Church adds scandal upon scandal. One radio wag called it a mass for Planned Parenthood. And so, it was. Joe Biden is an enemy of the Catholic faith. …

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Biden, the Bishops, and the New Face of Catholicism

By Monica Migliorino Miller Monica Migliorino Miller is the Director of Citizens for a Pro-life Society. She holds a degree in Theatre Arts from Southern Illinois University and graduates with degrees in Theology from Loyola University and Marquette University. She is the author of several books including The Theology of the Passion of the Christ (Alba House) and, most recently, The Authority of Women in the Catholic Church (Emmaus Road) and Abandoned: The Untold Story of the Abortion Wars (St. Benedict Press). The Catholic Church in America has been thrust into a new and unprecedented crisis—namely the election of Joseph Biden to the presidency. If not dealt with …

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Cupich/Gómez Spat Reveals Divide in USCCB

By Declan Leary Mr. Leary is the Collegiate Network Fellow at The American Conservative and a graduate of John Carroll University. Cardinal Cupich was not happy on Wednesday. He probably should have been; after all, the end of the Trump presidency was supposed to be a joyous day for denizens of the Left like Cupich. But the celebration was spoiled for the most vocal of the USCCB’s left-wing bishops because of a statement issued by USCCB President Archbishop José Gómez of Los Angeles. Cupich went into a tirade on Twitter, calling it “an ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration.” According to Cardinal Cupich, it was issued without …

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President Biden and a Catholic inflection point

George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent book is The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), published by Ignatius Press. For as many of you …

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