Focus

Food for Thought

Oct 12, 2017

Catholic and Lutheran bishops gathered in Chicago March 2 for a prayer service commemorating the 500th anniversary of the Reformation.
Christian unity: The past encounters the futu

Oct 12, 2017

Something virtually unthinkable happened during the Second Vatican Council in the early 1960s. Numerous Christians who were not Roman Catholics were invited to serve as formal observers of the council proceedings in Rome.
The ‘Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification’ in brief

Oct 12, 2017

On October 31, 1999, the Lutheran World Federation and the Catholic Church signed the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification.
The Spirit is at work in other religions

Oct 06, 2017

In April 2006, the Vatican Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith notified Vietnamese-American theologian Peter Phan that his 2004 book, Being Religious Interreligiously: Asian Perspectives on Interfaith Dialogue was “confused” on significant points of Catholic doctrine.
Food for Thought

Oct 06, 2017

St. Charles Borromeo (1538-1584) stands out among the figures of the Counter-Reformation.
God’s grace through the sacraments

Oct 06, 2017

In 1517, when Martin Luther went public with his 95 Theses or proposals against the selling of indulgences, he expected a reasoned debate similar to others he had encouraged with previous proposals. Little could he have dreamed or expected that he would unleash a religious maelstrom that is today known as the Reformation.
The Council of Trent

Oct 06, 2017

Although Catholics generally banded together during the Reformation against the Lutheran threat and the growing number of Protestant dissidents, popes and bishops did recognize that the church had to respond to this crisis and, with humility, acknowledged that some reform was necessary.
Amoris Laetitia is built on traditional Thomist morality

Oct 06, 2017

Seeing, understanding and engaging with people’s real lives does not “bastardise” theology, rather, it is what is needed to guide people towards God, Pope Francis told Jesuits in Colombia.
Food for Thought

Sep 27, 2017

"Music is a gift of God; it awakens and moves me so, that I preach with pleasure," Luther said.
Scripture no longer a divider of Christians

Sep 27, 2017

Future church historians will explain to my great-grandchildren how an age of dialogue arose during the 20th and 21st centuries, displacing the hostile, suspicious age of polemics that for 400 years shaped relationships between Catholics and members of the Reformation churches.