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David Murgia, a religion journalist who has produced a number of projects for national television networks in Italy, and who is also a supporter of the alleged apparitions at Medjugorje, writes on his blog Il Segno di Giona (“The Sign of Jonah”) that he has come into the possession of a copy of the Ruini commission report. In this post I’ll present a draft English translation of his excerpts from the report. This study group was launched under Pope Benedict XVI in 2010 and led by Camillo Cardinal Ruini, the former head of the vicariate of Rome. It spent four years gathering information on the case and forwarded its result, a thirty-page document, to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Pope Francis praised the group for its work and some leaks appeared about its conclusions, but...

Emeritus Hong Kong Cardinal Joseph Zen Ke-kiun, 88, has taken his battle with the Vatican over its controversial September 2018 deal with the Chinese Communist Party on the appointment of bishops to the US Congress, declaring that Beijing wants “total surrender” from the Holy See over the running of the Catholic Church in China. The surprise move comes amid continued unrest in Hong Kong over the city’s pro-Beijing government, with critics seeing its slow response and poor management of the coronavirus epidemic, now given the official name COVID-19, coming on the back of eight months of street protests over the encroachment of Chinese authorities on the special administrative region. Born and raised in Shanghai, Cardinal Zen has been a central figure in all levels of protests against Beijin...

British film director Alfred Hitchcock stands next to an old cinematograph (film camera) at the Cinémathèque Française in Paris, France, on May 28, 1960. (AFP via Getty Images) Alfred Hitchcock Hitchcock was born and raised a Catholic and remained a practicing Catholic all his life. Alfred Hitchcock died 40 years ago on April 29, 1980. It is also 100 years since he started working in the film industry in 1920. Hitchcock’s career and life had began in the reign of Queen Victoria and ended in the presidency of Jimmy Carter, moving from London to Hollywood, from a title designer on silent movies to becoming one of the world’s most famous directors. The first movie he directed was the silent Number 13 (1922); his last was the much noisier Family Plot (1976). After his death, the portrait paint...

So you think the idea of the “Twelve Steps” is new? Well, if you think you’ve got a new idea, go back and see how the Greeks put it, or in this case how the Medieval Latins put it. St. Bernard of Clairvaux identified twelve steps up the mountain of pride in his work Steps of Humility and Pride. In today’s post, we focus on the Twelve Steps of Pride. Tomorrow, we’ll tackle the Twelve Steps of Humility (from St. Benedict’s rule).  Below, I list the Twelve Steps of Pride briefly and then provide some commentary (it’s my commentary, so don’t blame St. Bernard :-)). Again, the list is his; the inferior comments are mine. Note how the twelve steps grow progressively more serious and lead ultimately to the slavery of sin. The steps tend to build on one...

Pope Francis holds two books he presented as a gift to cardinals and bishops on the occasion of his Christmas greetings to the Roman Curia, Dec. 21, 2019, in the Clementine Hall at the Vatican. (Andrew Medichini/Pool/AFP via Getty Images) ‘Querida Amazonia’: On the Question of Married Priests, a Papal Pattern Returns COMMENTARY: In Querida Amazonia, as in previous documents, clear questions were posed. Ambiguous answers were given, awaiting clarification by novel maneuvers. Father Raymond J. de Souza In regard to the magisterium of Pope Francis it’s not just what he teaches, but how. In both Amoris Laetitia and in regard to capital punishment, the manner of magisterial teaching was novel. The pattern is now repeated with Querida Amazonia, the Holy Father’s post-synodal apostolic exhortatio...