God willing: Watch what you say when others are suffering

By Bryan Cones| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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When tragedy hits, think twice before claiming what God intended.

Of the many issues that drove last November’s election, few might have guessed that “God’s will” would become a major spoiler in the Indiana Senate race. When GOP candidate Richard Mourdock suggested that a life created through rape is “something God intended,” it cost him an easy path to victory. But while pundits and Democrats were quick to make as much political hay as possible out of Mourdock’s gaffe, only a few commentators, theologians, and pastors took it on.

Bryan Cones is a writer living in Boston. See more posts by Bryan Cones

Words fail us: Priests respond to the new Missal a year later

By Scott Alessi| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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The new missal has made priests watch their language, but after one year most say the meaning of the Mass is getting lost in translation.

There was plenty of chatter in the pews when the new Roman Missal landed in parishes last November, as Catholics fretted about the at times awkward or confusing responses that would replace their old familiar prayers. But the challenges parishioners faced in adapting to the new translations were nothing compared to what was in store for the men on the other side of the altar.

Scott Alessi is the managing editor of U.S. Catholic.

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Words fail us: Parishioners respond to the new Missal a year later

By Meghan Murphy-Gill| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Reporting straight from the pews after a year of the new translations, U.S. Catholic readers say they are still stumbling through the prayers.  

Stilted, awkward, unnatural, strange, choppy, clumsy, obtuse. If you read these words in a movie review, would you head for the ticket line or run in the opposite direction? What about wooden, tortured, terrible, ridiculous, inaccessible, or abominable? Are you at least intrigued by what could warrant such description? Would you want to check it out once a week?

Meghan Murphy-Gill is a writer living in Chicago.

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The church in Asia: A place for all peoples

By Edmund Chia and Gemma Tulud Cruz| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
Article Church
Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the church faces new challenges. In this final installment of a three-part series,

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Edmund Chia is a senior lecturer in theology at the Austrailian Catholic University in Melbourne. Before moving to Australia, Edmund taught in the United States.

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Gemma Tulud Cruz is a senior lecturer in theology at the Australian Catholic University in Melbourne. Before moving to Australia Gemma taught in the United States.

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Building and sustaining communities in a world of social media

By Verity A. Jones| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the church faces new challenges. In this final installment of a three-part series, Rev. Verity A Jones explains how social media can throw relationships and communities into high relief, including communities of faith.

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The Rev. Verity A. Jones is the executive director of the Center for Pastoral Excellence at the Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis and the director of the New Media Project (newmediaprojectatunion.org). She is an ordained minister of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).

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What is the future of the liturgy?

By Father Anthony Ruff, O.S.B.| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Fifty years after the opening of the Second Vatican Council, the church faces new challenges. In this final installment of a three-part series, Father Anthony Ruff says the best way to defend the church’s liturgical renewal is to celebrate the reformed liturgy as well as possible.

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Father Anthony Ruff, O.S.B. teaches liturgy and liturgical music at St. John's University School of Theology-Seminary in Collegeville, Minnesota. He blogs at Pray Tell and served on the International Comission on English in the Liturgy until he was removed for publicly criticizing the new missal translation.

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Advance bishop

By Bryan Cones| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Moving a bishop should be more than an ecclesiastical game of chess.

Climbing the corporate ladder in our business-driven culture is generally applauded. Who doesn’t want the corner office, the big salary, and the perks of joining the true “company men” (who are still usually men, after all)? Staying in the same job or with the same company for too long can suggest a lack of ambition, and it certainly doesn’t improve one’s marketability.

Bryan Cones is a writer living in Boston. See more posts by Bryan Cones

Apology accepted

By Sheryl Frances Chen| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Reconciliation is more than baring your soul to a confessor—it’s a place to remember that we’re always forgiven.

Catholics are less than two percent of the population of Norway, and there are only nine priests in our diocese. That means one does not have much choice of confessors. When I was at a meeting in Ireland, therefore, it occurred to me that I could ask one of the abbots there to hear my confession.

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Fast Food

By Megan Sweas| Print this pagePrint | Email this pageShare
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Abstaining from chicken nuggets and burgers during Lent can teach us about caring for animals, our neighbors, and the Earth as much as it does about self-control.

I once thought that to be Catholic meant to eat meat. It wasn’t a holiday without Mass, Polish sausage, and turkey or ham. Even my family Christmas cookie recipe’s secret ingredient is lard. God gave us dominion of animals. Meat on our plate is God’s delicious gift to us.

Megan Sweas is a freelance writer based in Los Angeles.

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