In the first Stateside move of the Vatican’s new working year, the most significant opening on the current US docket is off the table… and as Mets fans can always use good news, they’re in luck – the new shepherd of Citi Field is already one of their number. At Roman Noon on this feast of the Archangels, the Pope named Long Island’s own Bishop Robert Brennan – the 59 year-old head of Ohio’s capital church in Columbus – as the eighth bishop of Brooklyn: the US’ fifth-largest diocese, its 1.8 million members comprising the nation’s largest non-metropolitan see.  After less than three year ..read more

As some US bishops advocate levying de facto sanctions on President Biden and other Catholic politicians for their support of legal abortion, the Holy See's distinct, but veiled skepticism over a Communion clash has taken a marked leap in volume, with the church's lead doctrinal official warning that the push would be "misleading if [it] were to give the impression that abortion and euthanasia alone constitute the only grave matters of Catholic social teaching that demand the fullest level of accountability on the part of Catholics." Dated Friday, 7 May, the message came in a letter from the p ..read more

Before anything else, especially amid all the sorrows, fears, loss and disorientation of a brutal year across the world, Buon Natale a tutti – to one and all, a Blessed Christmas... may all its light, hope and richness fill each of us in ways we've never known. Always the world's most-watched religious event, the Pope's Mass on this Holy Night takes place under circumstances without modern precedent.  A far cry from the usual overflow crowd spilling into St Peter's Square, this Eve's liturgy begins at the record early hour of 7.30pm Rome time (1.30pm US Eastern) in deference to Italy's mo ..read more

Fifteen years (less a day) since Benedict XVI revolutionized the Roman Pontiff's Christmas "greeting" to the leaders of his Curia – transforming the holiday pleasantry into a Pope's ultimate programmatic address of the calendar – for everything that's changed since, the distinction remains. Even so, of course, 2020 has been no ordinary year: not merely in terms of a pandemic that's only bolstered Francis' standing as the premier spiritual leader of a world under lockdown (one left all the more to watch him over a livefeed), but likewise in a tenuous feeling on the homefront, whether in the lo ..read more

Whether you’ve been waiting three decades or just three weeks for this, the “mountaintop” is at hand.  From 4pm Rome (10am US ET), the livefeed of a Public Consistory like no other – from the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s, an unusually sparse rite for the elevation of 13 new Cardinals... and with it, a watershed for American Catholicism as Washington’s Archbishop Wilton Gregory receives his red hat:  Due to the pandemic, the customary packed house of global pilgrims and full-on turnout of the 200-member College have been severely whittled to a crowd of roughly 100. And indeed ..read more

As the US bishops face a moment unseen in most of their lifetimes – the nation's election of a Catholic to the Presidency – the issue of Joe Biden's faith emerged by surprise at today's public close of the USCCB plenary, as the bench's leadership suddenly moved to draw a line in the sand with the incoming Democratic administration over its support of abortion. Five days since the President-elect received a congratulatory phone call from the Pope – during which the two discussed the common causes of "caring for the marginalized and the poor, addressing the crisis of climate change, and wel ..read more

Set to begin at 1pm Eastern, this final day of a virtual – and heavily curtailed – USCCB Plenary will be underpinned by what've arguably been the two key threads of American life in 2020: the bench's free-form discussions on COVID-19's impact on the nation's largest religious body, and the shape of the church's witness against racism. To be sure, these aren't debates leading up to a vote, simply pastoral talks to compare notes on best practices and possible areas of improvement. In that light, these conversations tend to be even more revealing of the mind of the body than exchanges over specif ..read more

And now, for something completely different – a hundred forty years since the collegial governance of American Catholicism began with a November meeting of its archbishops, a full century since the entire bench convened as the global church's first episcopal conference, the leadership of the nation's religious body has never experienced a moment like this... quite possibly in more ways than one. Due to COVID-19, the annual five-ring circus in Baltimore has fallen by the wayside, with the 250 voting members and 50-odd retirees gathering from home via Zoom – a platform with which the prelates ha ..read more

And so, almost two years since the former cardinal-archbishop of Washington Theodore McCarrick became the highest-ranking cleric ever to be dismissed from orders amid serial credible reports of sexual abuse, the Holy See's report has finally arrived – the 449-page whopper was released this morning, underpinned by testimonies from 17 victims of the 90 year-old ex-prelate. As no advance copies were circulated ahead of the 2pm Rome (8am ET) publish time – not even to practically any senior figures in either Rome or the US – the findings of the intense, exhaustive probe are just being absorbed ac ..read more

Yet again, the votes of the nation's largest religious body held the keys to the White House. And for just the second time in the 231-year history of the Republic, 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue will be home to an American Catholic. After 87 hours of counting across several states, at 11.30am today, the nation's major news outlets called the election of Joseph Robinette Biden, Jr of Delaware, 77, as the 46th President of the United States, defeating the incumbent Donald Trump.  The projection came as the Democratic nominee widened his lead in Pennsylvania – one of the three heavily-Catholic st ..read more