Catholic Church

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• SOURCE: Smithsonian
  12/14/2021
  

  France Approves Controversial Notre-Dame Renovations; Conservatives Call it "Politically Correct"

  Father Gilles Drouin argues that “the cathedral has always been open to art from the contemporary period."

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  10/16/2021
  

  In the Land of Godfathers, the Church Pushes the Tradition Aside

  Church authorities in Sicily have grown concerned that the naming of baptismal godparents has been subordinated to secular concerns of social networking, in extreme cases tied to organized crime. 

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• SOURCE: History.com
  9/27/2021
  

  The Renaissance's Challenges to Church Authority and Influence on the Reformation

  Stefania Tutino, a history professor at UCLA and intellectual and cultural historian of post-Reformation Catholicism, says the Reformation and Renaissance were two parallel but intertwined movements.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/24/2021
  

  He Blew the Whistle on Catholic Church Abuse in 1985. Why Didn't Anyone Listen?

  by Ben Proudfoot

  Reporter Jason Berry reflects on the difficulties of exposing abuse and the Catholic hierarchy's coverup in the 1980s. 

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• SOURCE: Religion Dispatches
  8/10/2021
  

  Douthat's Criticism of Papal Restriction on Latin Mass: Fascinating, but Familiar and Ahistorical

  by Massimo Faggioli

  Recent criticisms of Pope Francis's Church reforms have drawn from a rhetorical script established by conservative Catholics since Vatican II, but repeat their historical misunderstandings.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  7/30/2021
  

  ‘Outing’ of Priest Shows Power and Partisanship of Catholic Media

  by Peter Cajka

  Reporting on a scandal involving a priest's use of a gay hookup app highlights the growing ideological divisions in the American church and the nation's Catholic media. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  7/26/2021
  

  The Catholic Church has a Long History of Trying to Discipline Catholic Politicians (But Little Success)

  by Christine Adams

  From Henry VIII to Louis XIV, the Catholic Church has seen efforts to coerce political leaders to hew to doctrine backfire. Will the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' steps toward potentially denying communion to Joe Biden over abortion politics meet a similar fate?

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  3/15/2021
  

  Catholic Order Pledges $100 Million to Atone for Slave Labor and Sales

  "The move by the leaders of the Jesuit conference of priests represents the largest effort by the Roman Catholic Church to make amends for the buying, selling and enslavement of Black people, church officials and historians said."

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  1/25/2021
  

  Trump Impeachment After Leaving Office is Nothing – in 9th-Century Rome they Put a Pope’s Corpse on Trial

  by Frederik Pedersen

  A church synod in Rome in 897 AD tried Pope Formosus for transgressing the customs of the papacy. This required exhuming his corpse as he had been dead for seven months, and resulted in cutting off three fingers from the right hand and throwing the rest into the Tiber. 

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• SOURCE: Washington Post
  12/9/2020
  

  Biden Could Redefine What It Means To Be ‘A Catholic In Good Standing.’

  Joe Biden will not enjoy the solid support from Catholic Americans that JFK did. But his presidency may force the Church into necessary consideration of its public priorities. 

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• SOURCE: Made By History at the Washington Post
  11/30/2020
  

  Joe Biden’s Harshest Critics are Likely to be Some of His Fellow Catholics

  by Theresa Keeley

  Abortion is the most divisive issue for liberal and conservative Catholics in America today, but reflects a decades-long division in beliefs about how the Church should engage with the world. It may be tricky for Joe Biden to navigate as a faithful Catholic.

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• SOURCE: The Conversation
  11/12/2020
  

  60 Years after JFK, Biden as Second Catholic President Offers a Refresh in Church’s Political Role

  by Steven P. Millies

  Joseph Biden's election represents a chance to develop a political agenda informed by broad Catholic teaching, not only opposition to abortion. 

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• 10/18/2020
  

  Does the "Divided Loyalty" Question Still Dog Catholic Politicians?

  by D.G. Hart

  Joe Biden will likely do what JFK and Al Smith did, namely, fit his faith into the norms of American politics.

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• SOURCE: National Security Archive
  9/11/2020
  

  "GUILTY": Justice for the Jesuits in El Salvador

  Applying the doctrine of Universal Jurisdiction for human rights abuses, a Spanish Court found former El Salvador Colonel Inocente Orlando Montano guilty in the assassination of six Jesuit priests and two Salvadoran women in 1989. The National Security Archive supplied hundreds of declassified documents as evidence. 

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• SOURCE: The Atlantic
  8/27/2020
  

  The Pope, the Jews, and the Secrets in the Archives

  by David I. Kerzer

  Newly available Vatican documents, reported here for the first time, offer fresh insights into larger questions of how the Vatican thought about and reacted to the mass murder of Europe’s Jews, and into the Vatican’s mindset immediately after the war about the Holocaust, the Jewish people, and the Roman Catholic Church’s role and prerogatives as an institution.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/28/2020
  

  Unsealed Archives Give Fresh Clues to Pope Pius XII’s Response to the Holocaust

  Reports by historian David Kertzer that documents in the Vatican archives reflect on the antisemitism of Pope Pius XII and his advisors have sparked countercharges by church historians that reports based on newly available sources will give priority to sensational findings. 

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• SOURCE: NPR
  8/29/2020
  

  Records From Once-Secret Archive Offer New Clues Into Vatican Response To Holocaust

  Historian David Kertzer has published work based on newly available documents from the Vatican's archives, which suggests Pope Pius XII was motivated by political concerns to accept persecution of Europe's Jews and obstructed the reuniting of Jewish orphans with their families after the war.

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• SOURCE: New York Times
  8/16/2020
  

  A Saint's Sins

  Columnist Elizabeth Breunig consults historians including James Sandos, Robert Senkiewicz and Steven Hackel to evaluate how the canonization of Father Junipero Serra among Catholics and his memorialization by Californians squares with recognition of atrocities committed against Native Americans by Spanish colonizers. 

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• SOURCE: Times of Israel
  6/30/2020
  

  St. Louis’s Statue of Pius XII: A Double-Standard

  by Eunice G. Pollack

  If Yale has renamed a residential college named for John C. Calhoun and Princeton will cease to name its public policy school after Woodrow Wilson, the Jesuit St. Louis University should consider evidence of Pope Pius XII's actions in the face of the Holocaust and remove his statue from campus. 

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• SOURCE: Patheos
  6/7/2020
  

  “It’s About Time They Got Here”: Catholics and the Civil Rights Movement

  by Pat McNamara

  A Church historian advocates learning about how American Catholics have supported and challenged racism.