How Pope Leo is Softly Signaling His Upcoming Moves

Pope Francis was great for those who work in media. You never knew what his next move was. He was guided –absolutely not by the normal administrative means the Vatican had developed over the centuries—and by the charism of love for those who felt unwanted. It’s important to note that one of the thousands of things Pope Francis did in his 12 years was appoint Robert Prevost to lead the office that helps the pope select bishops– the American who became a missionary bishop in Peru.  Still, it was a surprise to most that the Cardinals selected him as the next successor to Peter.

The question over the past six months has been what will the new pope do? Will he undo the legacy of Pope Francis? He has certainly brought back a lot of traditional vestments to papal liturgy, which was a major change from Pope Francis who preferred simplicity. But what about his style of leadership?

What you may not know is that the Vatican has ways of taking temperatures or signaling changes in ways that don’t use the pope’s voice (so as not to confuse it as official teaching). For example, the Italian Catholic Bishops official news site Avvenire has served as a testing ground for seismic changes. But recent headlines have suggested that Pope Leo is moving to cement what Pope Francis did on “synodality” (a style of governance best described as “walking together”).

By placing laypeople and women religious like Sr. Raffaella Petrini and Maria Lia Zervino directly into the Dicastery for Bishops, the Church is making a real statement that governance is no longer tied to ordination.  When I was an intern 15 years ago at the Vatican embassy in Switzerland, I remember many competent laypeople working there. But they were not considered diplomats. “To be a true diplomat you must be ordained.”

But why? If you have been commissioned to speak on behalf of the Holy Father or your archbishop, why should I trust you less? Why does the change that happens during ordination also signal your ability to manage conflict greater than a classically trained diplomat?

To explain this change, Cardinal Ouellet published an op-ed in Vatican News. This is a powerful way of signaling the Holy Father’s intentions without actually changing any Vatican documents. He said, “Specialists recognise that our sacramental theology suffers from a pneumatological deficit that goes hand in hand with a one-sided Christological vision. While it is true that the seven sacraments are acts of Christ, they are also acts of the Church resulting from the action of the Holy Spirit.”

In plain English, that means the Church has been operating with one eye closed.

The first Vatican Council (which happened shortly after the end of the American Civil War) emphasized the authority of the Pope. The Second Vatican Council (much more recent) emphasized the unity of the bishops with the pope. It was a balancing out.

And as you can see, Pope Leo is intending to carryout that mission by leveraging the dignity and talents of lay people as well.

The “wait and see” period is officially closed. Pope Francis’ style of synodality will be implemented. The appointment of figures like Cardinal Cupich and Cardinal Tobin to the Dicastery of Bishops (which helps Pope Leo select bishops) is the final hard signal. We’re done discerning whether the Church should walk all together and now it’s time to do it.

I predict that Pope Leo’s papacy in the coming years will be calmer and with fewer clickbait headlines resulting from his press conferences. For Francis, his style was in the streets. For Pope Leo, the Church is in the statutes… trying to encode the legacy of Francis into the DNA of the Vatican.

Beyond the Medal - Homily at the Olympics

This homily for Sunday, February 15th, was delivered by Fr. Diego Puricelli in Milan, Italy during the occasion of the Olympics. It is re-printed with author permission. The author is not affiliated with Theology for the Unwanted.

“Blessed are they who follow the law of the Lord!”: We have just repeated these words with the psalmist. And, they are not simply beautiful poetry. They reveal a beatitude — a promise from God himself — that true and lasting happiness is found in walking in His ways.If we are here this evening, it is because we have tasted the joy of being with the Lord; because, at least once in our lives, we have savored a drop of His love — and that was enough to awaken within us a longing for Heaven.

“You would not be seeking Me if I had not already found You”, saint Augustine once wrote, expressing the paradox at the heart of every search for God: we are able to seek Him only because He first allowed Himself to be found.

And so, His Law can only be a path meant to help us live each day with joy. By following it, we discover true happiness.

And yet, something does not quite add up.

I do not know about you, but as I listened to this evening’s long Gospel, I found myself feeling somewhat unsettled. Jesus’ words seem to place before us an ideal that is lofty and beautiful, yet difficult to attain. And so it often happens that the Law of the Lord — which should be a source of joy — ends up feeling like a burden.

How many times, in fact, do His commandments, instead of “giving light to our eyes”, as the Psalm says, leave us weighed down by guilt? Measuring ourselves against them, we feel lacking, inadequate, never quite enough. This is a common experience, especially for those who live a form of Christianity in which rules, norms, and precepts gradually take over and dominate everything.

And so it happens that faith, from being a liberating experience, gradually turns into its opposite: a constant reminder of our fragility, an inner tribunal that leaves little room for mercy. We end up living as though life were a never-ending examination to be passed — exhausting and distressing, because it offers no rest.

In these days, as I have been following the Olympic competitions and watching both the victories and the inevitable falls of so many athletes, I have found myself wondering: is this not the same logic we often apply to our life of faith? A logic built on performance, results, and inner rankings — where we end up feeling “good” only when we win and “wrong” when we fall.

“Nothing hurts more than trying your best and still not feeling enough”. This repost on TikTok by Ilia Malinin — known as “the Quad God” — shared shortly before the performance in which he lost the gold medal, struck me deeply. It goes straight to the heart of one of the most profound dimensions of our human experience: the need to feel recognized, welcomed, and loved — not for what we manage to achieve, but for who we are.

Yes, someone might object: But this is the Olympics! Here, you have to prove your worth. Here, results, scores, and medals matter. And that is true: in a sporting competition, performance is decisive. But the real question is another: is this also true of our lives? Is it true before God? And if we think about it carefully, even in sport — when it is authentic — things do not really work this way. Behind every medal there are sacrifices, countless quiet hours of training, falls, defeats, and fresh starts. An athlete does not stop being valuable when he or she loses. No one loses their dignity because of a fall.

And this, in fact, is what fascinates us about sport: it tells, with disarming simplicity, the nobility of effort and, at the same time, the truth of our humanity — a humanity that is fragile, limited, exposed to failure, and yet capable of extraordinary courage and astonishing new beginnings.

The Gospel we have just heard, then, does not seek to pin us down to our miseries or our shortcomings. No. It calls us to give the best of ourselves, to dwell in the heights of love, to captivate the world with a way of living that carries the fragrance of Heaven.

As the Czech theologian Tomáš Halík reminds us: “The most authentic expression of our faith — or of our unbelief — is our humanity. Not what we say or think about God, but how we live our lives. And not only our moral life, our virtues and our sins, but also our imagination, our creativity, our compassion, our capacity for wonder and for laughter.

Fixing Canon Law’s Parish Boundary Problem

During a family trip to Rome, my dad looked out at one of the major avenues nearby the Vatican and commented: the roads don’t have lanes. There were busses, vespas, fiats, and somehow no accidents. Immediately I pointed out to him, and the people that drive on these roads are the same ones that write our Canon Law. When experts gathered in the Vatican leading up to the introduction of the modern version of Canon Law (1917), they were attempting to apply the principles of Aquinas and theology to a set of rules. It’s ironic in a sense because Aquinas himself was very clear that you could not reduce every possible scenario to a list of rules. But they meant well and the tradition of Canon Law is still important today.

We’re living in a period of transition in the Catholic Church. In many ways, the history of the Catholic parish and it’s territorial boundaries —something we started enforcing after the Protestant Reformation— is like the Church trying to paint lines on the road. It genuinely wasn’t about controlling where people go to Mass, it was about accountability. Which priest is responsible for your soul! Even if you go somewhere else, who at the end of the day has the duty to try and assist you specifically.

By assigning every square inch of the globe, the Church’s obsession with territory created a sort of safety net. Theoretically no one was left out.

The world is in transition now just as the Catholic Church is. People have cars and many spend half of their day/week in a neighboring diocese where they work. Over 2 million individuals live most of the year at sea shipping goods across the continents and fishing so we can eat. Parish territories are for land and not the sea, so those individuals technically do not have a bishop either.

The Pope is an American! But more importantly, he is someone who has seen the Church at work on three different continents (North and South America, plus Europe). All complicated for their own reason. And I am very hopeful that Pope Leo XIV will use his expertise as a Canon Lawyer and as someone committed to listening to the people who have experienced issues in the Church.

Don’t get me wrong, the concept of a parish boundary still matters some. The map isn’t the problem, it is the fact that Church law currently assigns pastoral service to people based on taxation rather than presence. Going back to the original meaning of the word parish (Greek paroikia) it means a pilgrim people. It refers to people on the move through a space. And theologically the sense of belonging we are called to create is one of presence.

But if boundaries are strictly about domicile (let’s be honest, it’s about where you pay your taxes), you miss out on a massive portion of your population.

In Arlington, VA, a parish priest once told me that his affluent congregation didn’t include any poor people. I pointed out to him that if he took a walk around the neighborhood after the Noon Mass, he would see commercial vehicles, trucks with ladders, utility vehicles, maids/cleaning services. From a visit I made to the Archdiocese of Los Angeles in 2014, I recall a parish opening up at lunch. Can you imagine how many people would prefer to eat (and relieve themselves) inside rather than huddling in their van for 30-45 minutes? It’s an opportunity to demonstrate the Church’s recognition of their dignity & that the individuals here for 8-10 hours a day are equally contributing members of our community. The sign of welcome provides an important theological encounter and welcomes people back (or encourages them to remain Catholic).

I’ve also mentioned my personal experience, feeling uncomfortable for behavior happening in a parish, and then having been encouraged to go back to my parish boundary. I was told, “the Church in her wisdom gives you a home.” The thing is, Canon Law doesn’t really say that. But for someone who is trying to enforce a model, they could read to me Canon 518 and I might think that the obligation is on me. “As a general rule a parish is to be territorial.” We’ll, thankfully I decided to leave for safer grounds despite having heard that. It wasn’t until years later I realized that 518 is actually an instruction to the priests rather than the congregation.

Pope Leo XIV should consider amending it for more flexibility.

-518 (amended to add) A parish is a community of the Christian faithful defined by missionary proximity. While the territory of a defined boundary provides a stable administrative base, the parish is primarily constituted by the active presence of the Church within diverse spaces where the faithful sojourn and pass through.

Remember, historically parishes were literal community centers. We did not have pews before the Protestant Reformation and only added them after the Catholic Church started to lose ground as the convener of society. The eucharist and the others sacraments are the source of parish life and the reason for it’s community. But we should also consider loosening our mental model of a parish as a collection of buildings.

-518 (possible additional amendment) Personal parishes [aka languages, specific ministries for demographics that can’t easily be served in a regular parish.] should be held in equal legal standing with territorial parishes, recognizing that in a mobile and contemporary society, the mission territory of the Church is porous and requires efforts to create a culture of encounter where a legacy parish might not best be equipped to serve everyone.

In Northern Virginia, there is a bustling parish for Korean speakers and another for Vietnamese speakers. My home parish is Italian-speaking (although almost all of us have full proficiency in English too). The military services of a handful of countries have their own “diocese.” Prisoners have souls too. And as pointed out earlier, 2 million individuals live at sea and are only served by a priest when pulling into a port covered under the Vatican’s stella maris program (largely managed by Scalabrinian priests).

In a complex world, we have to accept that our canon law should not try to put every person into a box. And at the same time, we can still recognize the contributions of a territorial parish. Catholic theology builds itself upon the presence of the people and not where one is registered to pay taxes.

John the Baptist shows us how to move from “not-knowing” to recognizing

After baptizing Jesus in the Jordan River, John gives a somewhat startling statement about his cousin, “I did not know him” (John 1).  Have you ever heard of a court case where two people who clearly spent a lot of time together claim to the judge to have not met before? It doesn’t pass the laugh test. 

So yes, John did know Jesus. It’s only when we exit the legal mindset and enter the theological world that we can start to see what he meant and how it applies to our own sacramental lives. 

First, it is important to recall that we believe Jesus himself is the “truth.” Theology is the study of trying to understand that truth. And this scene with John the Baptist really underscores that truth is not a doctrine or a checklist, but a true physical encounter. 

Truth is where Jesus “contacts” or touches our lives in the deepest ways so we can see reality more clearly.   

Remember that John the Baptist out of a sense of justice (knowing that in a legal sense, to be baptized by someone means they are subordinate to you) tried to impede Christ in the Jordan River. But his logic was incomplete. 

John did not want to make his cousin his subordinate. But Jesus insisted, “you must allow it now.” 

And the scene that follows, where a dove comes down from above and touches the Christ and takes residence within him, is the “contact” moment where John the Baptist realized exactly who his cousin really is. 

Jesus is divine. Jesus is truth. We are living in some form of darkness and the light of Christ gives us the ability to see things for what they really are. Theology is reality. 

This is where the liturgy of that baptism becomes evident to the onlookers as John proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God” (John 1:29).  Dr. Andrea Grillo, a sacramental theologian in Rome, in his many writings on liturgy and its purpose, has helped me to focus on how these moments become a community movement from the not-knowing to the known. 

The sacraments (Baptism or the Eucharist) are contact points with the divine. They change us. They are a true encounter with reality itself (God). 

When the priest repeats the words “Behold the Lamb of God” at Mass, we’re stepping into John the Baptist’s shoes. Each Mass, we should go deeper into our understanding of what it means to be touched by the Christ and how he dispels our not-knowing. 

Our reflections should avoid the honest mistake of John, one that tries to uphold legal principles and appearances by impeding Christ from being baptized (even though it was out of a sense of justice), and instead promote and allow these encounters wherever they are lacking. 

Hamilton and Fruitful Tensions: Why JPII’s Big Theological Innovations in 1979 Keep Us Going

First, let’s get this out of the way. This is not a post about power or roles in the Church. This is about theology and how the Church comes to know us.

To understand what the Church believes, we usually start by figuring out what we do not believe. In the long, messy and winding story of the Church and it’s theology we historically answer questions first by excluding the things we reject, and then a century later figure out the “why.” We draw a line in the sand, and then decades later start discerning together what the sand was there in first place.

In 2016, while I was teaching an OCIA class, I found myself standing at one of those lines. Four women in the class asked me a question that has become a definitive “tension” of our age: “Why can’t women be priests?”

I gave the standard theological answer that the Church developed in 1979: “the Nuptial mystery.” I explained that the priesthood is an iconic representation of Christ the Bridegroom. “Think of it like a theater,” I suggested. “You wouldn’t cast a woman to play George Washington would you? How much more important is that on the altar where the priest actually stands in the place of Christ.”

One of the students immediately raised her hand, a n said, “But Hamilton has changed that!” In case you’re not familiar, that play was a craze that swept the nation in 2015. People were getting more and more into American history because of how well the musical portrayed it. Hamilton opened up our minds and it did so by casting unusual figures. (“I am from Newark…” “Did I ever expect to see myself playing two old white dudes” (said the young Okieriete “Oak” Onaodowan who played U.S. President James Madison). It made me think, it is actually super important theologically that the priest is an icon of Christ, but did I accidentally reduce the entire conversation to biology?

Perhaps I haven’t yet figured out the whole picture like I thought.

The Massive Upgrade to Catholic Theology in 1979 Courtesy of Saint John Paul II

Before we can sort things out, we have to realize how far we have come. For the vast majority of Church history, the exclusion of women in powerful roles was not based on the newly expressed nuptial mystery. It was based on the biological truth (understood at the time) that women were somewhat of a happy accident that God allowed. The Church relying on ancient understandings believed that women were persons who failed to fully form all the parts, and to an extent that they were intellectually inferior.

Saint Thomas Aquinas famously described the female person as “mas occasionatus” (a misbegotten male). Now Aquinas too was someone who helped the Church overcome many lines in the sand. We would be theologically stunted without him. He got the conversations going forward again. So I’d have to think that he would want us to continue here too. Again, I’m not talking about roles in the Church but our theological understanding of man and woman and why differences are still important.

And as a reminder, I am not a fan of liberation theology or neo-scholastic theology but the “critical realist” school of thought that looks at the reality created by God and then understands how we fit.

The Limits of the Body

As we look at the contemporary crisis regarding “gender ideology” as Pope Francis liked to call it, the line in the sand he was drawing was a movement to cancel out differences. To some, this sounds a bit reactionary. But through a theological lens especially according to one of my favorite theologians Aristide Fumagalli, it was an attempt to defend the limits of the human body.

Our bodies have limits. We are born into a specific flesh, some of us are born disabled or even pre-disposed to certain conditions later in life. Recognizing those limits is really important theologically. The limit is a gift that draws us to know more about the world through others. The one who says, “I am not a great athlete” might lead us to appreciate more the one who is. The person who is experiencing a tough illness leads us to appreciate those who are healthy in a new way — and leads us to rely on one another.

The important thing is to avoid a theology that allows one to say parts of my identity or my body are optional. No, I’m not saying you need to fit into boxes. I’m saying you need to discover and become who you are rather than seek to change. This answer should dissatisfy most who either want to preserve power and hierarchy & also those who want to tear it all down. God’s creativity cannot be boxed in and it is our job to discover it.

Danger of Being Literal

However, we have to be really careful. Sacramental theologian Andrea Grillo warns what he sees as the idol of the “nuptial mystery” by turning it into a biological-only box. When we use the Groom/Bride metaphor he says we exit theology by trying to apply that literally to the sciences (biology and sociology). Grillo reminds us that life is generated in the “between” and “otherness.”

The way forward according to another moral theologian I love to read is Alain Thomasset’s “narrative” method. He says we have to stop looking at the human person as a static biology textbook and start understanding the wholeness of the person through their journey. We don’t have to exclude biology but we shouldn’t be trapped by it.

Catholicism is a both/and faith. But to get there we historically start with some form of exclusion, and then much much later find a way to overcome it. We must defend “fruitful tension” of difference and diversity in the world, lest we become sterilized by it.

Sources:

Aristide Fumagalli. My favorite book by him is L’Amore Possibile (Italian). It takes a cautious but faithful approach to understanding virtuous love when it is in tension with Church rules.

Andrea Grillo: Provocative and interesting read (Italian). “Does male reservation preserve "the divine order"? The unfortunate work of the Second Pontifical Commission on the Admission of Women to the Diaconate” in Cittadella Editrice.

Alain Thomasset. Many accessible articles online reference his thoughts found in this book (French).

Homily: When we Reduce God to a Guarantee of Our Own Protections

Fr. Diego Puricelli is a moral theologian and priest of the Diocese of Belluno-Feltre. This homily by our guest author is reprinted freely with permission.

Celebrating the feast of Saint Stephen on the day immediately following Christmas may appear, at first glance, to be an unfortunate choice. The account of the violent death of the first martyr in history, in fact, ruins the enchanted atmosphere of Christmas. 

Yet this feast has its roots in a very ancient tradition: as early as the 4th century it was celebrated on December 26, particularly in Jerusalem and Rome. It is not, therefore, a random choice, but an original and intentional placement, dense with theological meaning. 

In a few days, then, we will celebrate another memorial, that of the Holy Innocents, namely the children killed by Herod. Here too, once again, the tragic presence of bloodshed, in the aftermath of the most beautiful of announcements. In short, it seems almost as if the liturgy intentionally wants to crack the enchantment of Christmas. But why? 

One of the keys to interpretation can be provided directly by the text of Luke, specifically the sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles. Here Stephen appears from the very start as a man "full of grace and power," whose life is totally crossed by the force of the Spirit. His word, however, is not neutral or accommodating: it is a word that unsettles, that unmasks: in short, that causes a crisis. 

And it is precisely this that the text lets us see clearly: the light that comes from God, when taken seriously, is not only a source of consolation, but also of resistance. This, after all, is an intuitive fact. Light, while on one hand it brightens and warms, on the other can be annoying to those who are not used to the light, to those who live in darkness. 

If Christmas, therefore, announces the breaking of this light into history, Stephen is one of its first and concrete consequences. His martyrdom, in fact, does not contradict Christmas joy, but simply reveals its price.  Now, there is an aspect on which we perhaps do not dwell enough: the very source from which the persecution is born. 

Stephen’s persecution, in fact, does not originate in distant environments or those openly hostile to God, but takes shape within a religious context. They are men expert in the Scriptures, guardians of the Law, who feel threatened by his word. 

And this is precisely the most uncomfortable point of the story: resistance to the light does not always come from the outside, but can be born and often is born right where one considers themselves to be on God's side. 

On this point, the insights of American sociologist Mark Juergensmeyer in his book "Terror in the Mind of God" appear illuminating: in this small masterpiece, the scholar shows how religious violence—a phenomenon transversal to all religions, Christianity included—is not born primarily from an absence of faith, but from an absolutized faith, that is, one incapable of tolerating the challenging of its own certainties. 

When God is reduced to a guarantee of one's own identity, to a guardian of the borders and symbolic power of a group, then every "other" word—even when it is most faithful to the Gospel—becomes a threat to be neutralized. 

Violence, in these cases, does not serve to defend God—as if God needed to be defended—but to defend a system that has put itself in His place. And this, you know, concerns us much more closely than we are willing to admit. We are often quick to point the finger, to comment, to judge, to talk behind the backs of those next to us. 

Much less prompt, however, to recognize the rigidities that inhabit our hearts, the discords between the Gospel we proclaim with words and the one we concretely live, the reassuring comforts that we end up mistaking—and sometimes justifying—as evangelical radicalism. 

We stink, and we don't realize it. And whoever reminds us of it, whoever dares to tell us frankly, often disturbs us more than the evil they denounce.  After all, all of this should not surprise us: we live in a cultural climate of constant moral impunity, in which no one truly assumes their own responsibility: the blame is always outside of us, never inside. 

In this light, one also understands the fate of Stephen. He is not killed because he denies God, but because he announces Him in such a way as to dismantle a closed, self-sufficient religious order, fundamentally impermeable and resistant to any change. 

In this, Stephen is truly a crystal-clear image of Christ

And indeed, his death will be an almost perfect overlap with that of the Master: "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit." "In manus tuas, into your hands, Father, I commend my spirit." That is why the blood shed by Stephen is found next to the cradle of the child of Bethlehem: because the God who is born out of love is the same one who, if taken seriously, can cost one's life.

Homily for Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception

The following is reprinted with author permission. Fr. Diego Puricelli is a professor of moral theology and a priest of the Diocese of Belluno-Feltre.

"Where are you?" It is a question as old as humanity. A discreet question, almost whispered, and yet capable of opening up abysses. A question that resurfaces when we finally slow down, when the noise that dwells within us fades, and by grace, we truly become capable of listening to ourselves.

"I heard your voice in the garden: I was afraid, because I am naked, and I hid myself." We often cannot even formulate a similar answer. We do not possess the lucidity of Adam, whose sentence is truly a distillate of self-knowledge. What had happened? Adam discovered he had been deceived. He experienced his own fragility, his own vulnerability: he felt naked. And the fear of being wounded again pushed him to hide, to shut himself off, to distance himself even from his dearest affections, the first of which is his own God.

How similar we are to him! How many times do we also hide, not because we truly want to disappear, but because we are afraid of being seen for who we are: incomplete, contradictory, exposed. We hide behind efficiency, behind the quick wit, behind the roles we hold; we even hide behind spirituality, when we transform it into an alibi for not facing our deepest fears.

"Where are you?". Not: "Why did you make a mistake?", not: "Why aren't you better?". Simply: "Where are you?". Where do you find yourself in your life today? A question that does not condemn, but invites us to step out of the shadows.

This, however, is not the only one. Another question reaches our progenitor: "Who told you that you were naked?". It is an interrogation that inevitably resonates within us too. "Who deceived you? Who made you feel wrong? Who broke your heart?"

At first glance, it seems like a cruel question, one that puts a finger on the wound. And yet, paradoxically, it is an offer of salvation. Moreover, I would say: it is the only question that truly makes sense to try and answer.

This time, however, Adam cannot delve deep. And, in fact, he behaves as we often behave: he passes the buck. He blames Eve, who in turn blames the serpent. No one takes the part that belongs to them: no one has the courage to say: "It was me."

After all, this is a mechanism as ancient as it is current: when the truth burns, we always look for an easier target than ourselves. Thus, pretending that words and gestures do not leave wounds, we end up judging, accusing ourselves, and hurting each other.

In the chain of passing the buck, however, the last reference point is missing. The blame slides from Adam to Eve, and from Eve to the serpent. But is the serpent really the last link in the chain? The biblical text here is extremely subtle. Yes, because who created the serpent and placed it in the garden? God. Exactly. The fault is His. Or at least in the distorted logic of our wounded heart, we end up thinking it is His.

Here is the paradox: the one who had nothing to do with it, the one who is actually the only one who truly loves us, ultimately becomes the "monster" of the situation.

Mary is exempt from these "human, all too human" logics, in the derogatory sense of the term. In her, there is no shadow of that instinctive reflex that leads us to suspect, to defend ourselves, and to accuse. She is Immaculate precisely because she possesses an original, clear, total trust in God: she does not doubt His benevolence, she does not interpret His word as a threat, she does not experience His presence as judgment.

Mary often does not understand, she is gripped by doubt, like each of us, but she trusts. Radically. Even arriving at hoping against all hope.

How much we need her example and her intercession in our lives! Looking to her, in fact, we learn to return to the essential: "God is on our side, not against us." He is the only one who does not betray us, the only one who does not tire of starting over, the only one who continues to believe in us even when we no longer believe in ourselves. And this—precisely this—is what matters, what can truly heal our hearts.

The prophet (a homeless woman) in my parish basement.

This past Sunday, a new face appeared: an elderly European woman. She was very reserved and pleasant. Nothing about her appearance indicated she was homeless, but the parish priest had been attempting to help her connect to a place to stay all week.

As our weekly gathering drew to a close, we invited everyone present to sit together (volunteers and homeless alike) and pray through the Gospel of the day. This week it was the account of John the Baptist preaching in the wilderness (Matthew 3:1-12).  We do this every Sunday. Sign of the cross, one person reads the Gospel, another reads a reflection, and we ask for intentions. It’s a simple and predictable rhythm.  

When the reflection concluded, the woman cut through the silence, “Can I say something?” I doubted she was fluent in English and so she would probably only keep us for a few words longer than planned.

Wrong.

“Like John the Baptist, I too am isolated. And so God has called me to be a prophet.”

Immediately, I wondered whether she was fully present. In English, we tend to think of a prophet as a fortune teller. Nonetheless, I love it when our friends from the street speak up for themselves.   

But she continued on a very prayerful, coherent, and theological message.

The woman who was in many ways unwanted (an experience of everyone who is homeless) spoke on moral theology. And that allowed me to think of the words of John the Baptist in a living way present right in front of me.

1)      A prophet calls our attention to reality

We are quick to look past the suffering of the poor. Our programs and services are important but they often fail to solve away the isolation and marginalization that people experience. This woman named her vulnerability (isolation) and called our attention to the lack of love of God present in the world.  “God is love!” she said. She was challenging us to act in a way that shows we know what that means.

2)      The liturgy

This was just a prayer service, but like any liturgy of the Church it follows a very predictable rhythm. The funny thing is, the point of the liturgy is to create opportunities for the divine to break into our daily lives where we otherwise might be failing to encounter God in a real way.

When she began speaking, she brought us “off script.” The prayer has a very predictable cadence to it. And so in a way, it’s easy to block out the prophetic meaning of prayer. Liturgy brings us to our own “wilderness” and listen to the voice of the one crying out.

Her off the cuff theology reflection “God has isolated me too” made her a liturgy in some sense. The divine interruption. The Gospel is not an act or a rite that we recite like a school play, but a true reality that we should urgently encounter in our everyday lives. This woman revealed Christ among us.

3)      The calling

For many of my friends, their encounters with the homeless are limited to passing by them on the streets. “Please, I am hungry.” Beggers.

John the Baptist, like any prophet, was not living in his home. There was distance between himself and the comfort of familiar life. But that is not what makes you a prophet. It is that understanding sparked by God that your fragility and weakness enables you for a higher form of engagement.

Speaking for herself and calling our attention to her vulnerabilities, our guest did not view herself as a victim. She viewed herself as sent by God – not in a magical crazy sort of way. Through her Baptism.

The Gospel enables us to see the brokenness in the world as the vehicle God uses to convey dignity. Theology is not just something you can read about in a blog but an encounter most clearly understood through people who have felt discarded by society or the Church.

A Moral Catholic Life: Is it possible without grief?

A Moral Catholic Life: Is it possible without grief?

You could have a PhD in theology. Would that be enough to help you recognize and live a moral life? No.

Is being truly good and moral about following rules? Or is it found in both loss and connection with others? We’re about to talk about grief. And I’m not just talking about losing a loved one. This can be the disappearance of a friendship, a failed marriage, the collapse of a career, or sudden illness.

If you are at a Catholic Mass this Sunday, be warned that the readings will cause some anxiety. “The day is coming, like a blazing oven” (Malachi 3:19) and “When you hear of wars and insurrections…” (Luke 21). My friend Fr. Diego Puricelli in his own homily reassured me that Jesus is not trying to cause panic among his disciples. The Gospel is trying to shake us out of our complacency — something that impacts all of us and is impossible to avoid just by reading a theology textbook. Fr. Diego said, “Only when you realize that time is not infinite, then will you truly begin to live.”

The apostles had the best teacher you could find—Jesus himself. But even his lessons weren't enough to show them how to live a truly good life. But they didn't really understand until they faced sadness and loss when the crowd cheered for Jesus' death and they realized they might be next.

I too thought my Catholic instruction as a young teenager was enough. My high school theology teachers spent a lot of time discussing the importance of forming a good Catholic conscience, but for many years I had this mental model of following a checklist or a flowchart of God-given rules. What if there are some preconditions to having a good conscience? What if we can’t even live a fully ethical life until we’ve been fundamentally changed by grief.

What if grief is the actual precondition for living a good life? It was a question I would soon answer myself when I finally had the courage to be totally honest about my own life and came out of the closet. I didn’t realize how much turmoil was surfacing until much of my Catholic circle abandoned me... Some of my closest friends, those whom I relied on and shared all of the best moments of life for nearly a decade, suddenly gone. The chaos and negativity sent me into a spiral of loss before eventually propelling me into a newfound life of friendship with (and service to) others who have felt discarded.

We usually think of grief as a pain or weakness we have to “get over.” According to Fr. James Keenan, grief simply reveals a form of love. When someone we feel the loss of someone (or as the Italians like to say “disappearance of a loved one”) we are connecting again with the profound love that had tied us together. This is even true for acquaintances and former colleagues whom we have not thought about for many years but see a notification online that they left us.  Refusing to grieve is a refusal to acknowledge how connected we all truly are.

Fr. Keenan points out the disciples hiding in a room after Jesus’ death. We often focus on their fear amidst the absence of their teacher and Lord. But wasn’t there also profound grief and loss? The loss of Jesus left them recognizing their own fragility – and the possibility that they were next to be killed.

This is where Professor Keenan says vulnerability comes in. Vulnerability isn't a weakness; it's simply the basic human ability to be hurt. It creates an openness that forces us to connect with one another. Thus, the 12 Apostles after Jesus death gathered and locked themselves in a room together.

Imagine for a second. Would they have been so unified if Jesus had simply passed a natural death? Old age? Or would they have begun fighting to be the successor and chief of the apostles?

In the D’Arcy lectures, we’re reminded that moral failure is often not because we did the wrong thing – big mistakes happen in life all the time—but because we failed to even notice the other person’s need... Fr. Keenan continues, if vulnerability is the moment that we open our hearts, then that is when we can begin living a truly moral and ethical life.

So, what does this realization mean for us? It means a moral life isn't just about what we do; it's about what we are willing to feel. Finding Mercy in Brokenness and Friendship

The powerful idea that morality is forged in connection and not in rules hit home for me personally.

I had always wanted to be seen as the “Good Catholic.” I was always focused on rules, traditions, and it would be difficult to find a better Catholic networker than me. The Knights of Columbus gave me several awards one year in acknowledgement of all of the men I had recruited to my college council.

I understood the Eucharist, intellectually. My brain could wrap itself around the idea that Jesus died on the cross for me. But the true depth of mercy felt distant.

The moment I got engaged to someone I fully loved —another man— half of my Catholic social circle vanished. Now imagine, thinking as a teenager that I was never going to have that perfect Catholic family, I built a sort of social insurance for myself. I worked for many years to build up a Catholic social circle in it’s place. It was large too! But life changed and eventually I got engaged to someone I truly loved.

They left me. Quite a few individuals close to me…My support and my friends of a decade just abandoned me.  I asked myself a painful question: Did my life ever matter enough to my friends to be grieved?

The system and institution of the Church that I had served so loyally was in a messed up way forging a precondition for my own future exclusion. That realization and brokenness was a terrible thing to feel. But it changed me profoundly.

I began feeling mercy for others in society who were discarded. I began feeling moved to friendship with others who also grieved. We weren't just "trauma bonding" (healing because we were both broken). Instead, we were truly able to see the full human dignity in each other, something I couldn't do before I was hurt myself. This would not have been possible if I had not been thrown away myself.

This new love, born directly from my own pain and exclusion, didn't just give me comfort; it gave me the courage to finally live a truly moral life. This moral life wasn't a set of rules; it was a real, physical encounter with others who are also created in the Image of God.

This realization deeply echoed in the calling of a Catholic group I already belonged to, the Community of Sant’Egidio. You may have heard of them because of their reputation for charity work in 60 countries. But the organization’s calling is to live out the faith by truly identifying with someone’s suffering. When we allow ourselves to be changed and transformed by their pain, it moves us. True lifelong friendships develop and wounds are no longer judged but healed together. Professor Keenan’s work is a vital reminder that ethical action is not a solitary mental task. It’s forged in the depths of our shared human suffering and our willingness to be open to both loss and love.

From thinking like a Catholic lawyer to a Catholic theologian

But many of our parishes in the English-speaking world are failing to help everyone take the next step. Quite the opposite, we just start teaching the word “no” with more complex phrases and applying it to more difficult moral situations.  For too many of us, faith feels like a spiritual checklist and a legal code that must be followed at all costs.

Many of our parishes are training us to be mini-Catholic lawyers. Don’t get me wrong, the rules are extremely important, but do they reflect the end goal?

Being only a few weeks away from the publication of my book Theology for the Unwanted, I wanted to offer a lengthier reflection on how we are called to go deeper in the faith. To see with the eyes of God rather than the eyes of a court. I’m advocating for a shift to a more freeing, but more difficult standard of a theologian.

Beyond the Checklist: Becoming “Children of the Day” According to Saint Paul

Professor Enrichetta Cesarale, a biblical scholar at the Gregorian University in Rome offers a beautiful starting point for our Christian transformation. She highlights a powerful image from Saint Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians (1 Thess 5:5) where he speaks of both children of the light and children of the day.  You might think that’s a redundant phrase…

Imagine the dawn each morning: the light of the sun dispels the darkness from our lives. But the day by itself isn’t a mere instant. When you wake up and have the whole day ahead of you, it’s an invitation to do something with the time the Lord has given you.

Professor Cesarale’s insight as I read it is an invitation to move past our legalistic tendencies. Holiness isn’t like flipping a light switch, moving from OFF to ON. It’s not about a single moment of rule-following. The day and our lives are often messy. They are a process of seizing the day and becoming everything we were made for by God.

We are not simply meant to live under rules, but to work toward becoming something. You become a child of the day as you start taking those bold steps toward a life focused on finding God in your messy life.

How the Law by itself Falls Short

To understand why this shift is so crucial, it’s helpful to look back at a previous era of moral theology. Professor Diego Alonso-Lasheras from the same university in Rome, has critiqued the methods found before Vatican II. Looking at the widely used “Compendio de Teologial Moral (Arregui-Zalba) as his example, he points out the limitations of a canon law first approach.

In older times, we treated moral theology as a system of rules, especially for confessors. Imagine a massive book where 1/3 of its pages were dedicated to law, the ten commandments and church rules. The focus on justice was largely individual and especially focused on contracts and property. It overlooked pressing social issues of the time—the things that most parishioners were probably concerned about—and turned morality into something of a bureaucracy rather than theological or mystical in nature.

Take a look at the concept of conscience. According to Professor Alonso-Lasheras, it was narrowly defined as a mechanism to apply the law to a specific case (“a proximate practical judgement”). Reading that makes me feel like a machine rather than a being created in the image and likeness of God.  Nowadays, we use a God-centered vision that was articulated in Gaudium et Spes (GS, 16) which presents the conscience as a sacred inner sanctuary where we encounter God’s voice.

Similarly, the sacraments were often reduced to disciplinary practices and rituals. Think of the detailed rules for celebrating the Mass and just how much real estate your parish bulletin dedicates to explaining what the Lenten Fast is every year.

In earlier times, we prioritized helping people avoid sin at the expense of teaching people how to search for and find God. We spent so much time on defining and explaining mortal sin that we spent comparatively little time on fostering virtue.

The recipe for becoming fully human and finding God

So if we’re moving beyond the Catholic lawyer mindset, what exactly are we moving toward? For me, it starts with understanding my own fundamental identity. We as humans are moral agents because we are created in the image and likeness of God.

Canon law, rules, and discipline are like the recipe. For any chef, having a recipe is important. The goal of the recipe is to help fully bake the ingredients into whatever the chef intended them to be.

Think about chocolate for a second. Centuries ago, it was often more acidic and prepared more simply than it is today. Over time, we’ve not only developed better recipes (and ways of preparing cocoa), we’ve come to understand the complexity of the ingredients themselves.  Our best chefs did not understand cocoa and it’s diverse flavors and how they interact with other ingredients in the way that we do now.

Not to be silly, but we too as humans are coming to understand ourselves better. Does it make sense to blindly follow the old recipe just because it was trusted for so long?

Catholicism has many ways to deal with these types of developments and always has. My hope is that we can continue to work on this in a unified spirit.

To become a theologian is to move beyond merely following the recipe. It’s also about understanding the nature of the ingredients—ourselves and our brothers and sisters. Each of us made in the Image of God and reliant on the graces freely given in the sacraments to help us in this process of transformation and conversion.

Sources:

Alonso-Lasheras, D. Moral Theology at the Dawn of Vatican II. A BRIEF PRESENTATION OF ARREGUI-ZALBA’S COMPENDIO DE TEOLOGÍA MORAL

Cesarale, E. «Figli della luce e figli del giorno» (1Ts 5,5): il fondamento kerygmatico dell’essere Cristiani. Studia Bobolanum. https://doi.org/10.30439/2020.2.10

Back to Tradition: The Theology of Fewer Pews

Let’s set the tone here. I love our beautiful intellectual tradition and want our churches to remain (or be rebuilt) as beautiful spaces that lift up our prayers to God. Yes, the Latin Mass is beautiful. But can it be replicated in the modern day and still capture all of the essential Eucharistic theology it once had?

We’ve gotten a little off track. Even becoming suspicious of those who want to see greater inclusion of the poor at church because it sounds political. But this is a theological blog.

On the podcast lately, we’ve been diving into the fundamental question of What does it mean to think like a theologian?

It’s a question of perspective.

·       A doctor wants to know your vital signs (to understand your health)

·       A lawyer wants to know your age and place (to know your rights and status)

·       A theologian wants to know your relationship with God and his creation (others)

Theology, at its root, is relational. In Genesis 2, God says, “It is not good for the man to be alone.” Catholic theology is all about connection, covenant, and community. And for many centuries, the physical interior setup of parishes and social function of the Church reflected that priority. Before modernism—before the rise of democracies and individualism—the local parish was quite literally the community center.

It wasn’t just a place where the Mass was performed. It was a place where the Mass was lived. This vision is captured well in the spirit of the Middle Ages/Renaissance/Baroque era, where in most European cities the Catholic Church was the primary organizer of society.

The controversial sacramental theologian in Rome, Professor Andrea Grillo, has posted extensively about recapturing the original meaning of Aquinas and his Eucharistic theology. (Yes, he provokes a lot of conflict with those who love the Mass in Latin. But he makes very good points).

According to Grillo, the sacramental context for Aquinas was threefold. The form (bread and wine) and the truth (real physical presence of Christ) in the Eucharist were never separated from the virtue. The virtue was the unity of the people of God and communion with the Church.  

Pews of Power or Pews of Presence?

I’m not interested in political discussions on this blog. Politics is virtually inescapable everywhere else you go. But I am interested in teaching Catholics how to toggle between a legal/political mind and a theological one – instead of forcefully mashing them together.  

So what does a theologian think about this? Unfortunately, with the decline of the Church’s political power there has been a movement to restore a priest monarch-like figure at the altar with subjects kneeing loyally at the altar. The theologian has to resist the huge urge to see our Church as powerful and beautiful and instead focus on the Church as relational. Jesus himself was a personal real-life encounter 2,000 years ago. And he can remain that today if we bring him to the otherness of those in the pews.

The radical theological unity taught by the Eucharist was not a passive concept. It was not abstract. It was an active, spiritual marketplace where the wealthy and poor were bound together in spiritual dependence on one another.

They were present in the same space. Interacting with one another even as the outside world was highly structured and divided.

How? There were no pews.

(pictured: painting of Saint Charles Borromeo parish in Antwerp, Belgium. Circa 1721 by Jacob Balthasar Peeters)

Beggars, the sick, and the poor congregated at the doors. Paintings of earlier eras even show this happening inside the church. Giving a small coin before or after Mass was expected. The rise of the Franciscans and Dominicans proved this to be an important way for Christians to live out their duties. We made our priests beggars.

During the sign of peace, people would kiss one another. And in later times, a “pax” board would be passed around the congregation so the whole people could kiss the same image.

There are many reports that at the end of Mass, the priest would bless the remaining consecrated bread and share it with the congregation. Yes. It seems there is evidence we were all snacking together as poor and rich Catholics alike after Mass. No need to leave the building. We are here as a community together.

The true tradition was not about subjects obeying a monarch figure but living in community together in a way that was not possible outside the church building.

To think like a theologian, we have to ask ourselves what is it about the Catholic relationship with God (and the unity with his people) that we are maintaining or losing with our current form of the sacred liturgy? Yes, the Latin Mass is beautiful. But can it be replicated in the modern day and still capture all of the essential eucharistic theology it once had?

Catholic theologian Dr. Thomas O’Loughlin has written about the need for the liturgy to once again reflect that synodality (walking together) that Catholic tradition tried to pass on.  He has carefully critiqued the idea of separating people by status. (Note: in previous podcast episodes, we’ve talked about how Catholics tend to group themselves in church).

Dr. O’Loughlin says, “The solution is simple: create in the building—or any room capable of holding about 75 people—a level space free of pews/benches.”   

He has also critiqued the idea of having a lofty display of washing the feet during the Holy Thursday Mass. “The command of Jesus is to all disciples: they must wash one another’s feet. They are not asked to mime Jesus’s activity, but to take his relationship of service among them to the paradigm of their relationship to one another.”

The Catholic Community of Sant’Egidio has a lengthier, drawn out version of this already put into practice in the 60 countries where they serve. They literally wash one another’s feet. Strange. Uncomfortable. But more attune to the theological instructions handed down. It’s probably not feasible worldwide, but it begs the question…are we replicating instructions or theology?

Theologians seek relationship with God. In the context of the Catholic Church, that relationship has always been reflected in our connections to one another. The original parish was defined by fewer pews and more contact. It was a deliberate blurring of the boundaries counter cultural to the world that existed outside.

Sources:

O'Loughlin, Thomas. "Synodality Needs to Express Itself in Liturgy." The Japan Mission Journal, vol. 76, no. 1, Spring 2022, pp. 27-38.

Grillo, Andrea. "Da Corpus Christi a Sanctissimum Sacramentum: la storia e la teologia sistematica." Come se non, 4 July 2025, www.cittadellaeditrice.com/munera/da-corpus-christi-a-sanctissimum-sacramentum-la-storia-e-la-teologia-sistematica/.

The Pope’s new teaching. Explained in plain English.

What is this new document?

About five months into his new role as pope, Leo XIV, issued his first official teaching document called Dilexi Te (Latin for “I Have Loved You”). The pope has deemed this an apostolic exhortation, meaning it is an letter to all Catholics and their leaders about the heart of their faith. The title of the document comes from the 3rd chapter of Revelations, where Christ is speaking to a particular Christian community in modern day Turkey/Türkiye. That community could not use arguments, logic, power, or money to bash other people—and Christ affirms his love for them.

The pope’s new letter is about poverty and people who are struggling, but it's not a call for a new charity drive. It’s a theological letter so it goes much deeper than just rules or duties and instead tries to teach us something new about who God really is. The full document on the Vatican’s website is linked HERE. Wherever you see [DT] in this article it references Dilexi Te and the paragraph number.

Why does this matter to me?

On every episode of the podcast, you’ll hear us say “Tell your stories.” That’s because you were made in the Image of God and for whatever reason your local parish may refuse to get to know you, there is something about Christ that they will not learn until they hear your story.

Even though the letter doesn't mention LGBT individuals, its main argument applies directly to them (and anyone who feels unwanted). The document teaches that the Church must learn from them.

This document addresses that head on.

The main message of this new document: If we want to understand Jesus beyond what a textbook might tell us, we have to be close (friendship) with the people in society who feel rejected, who thirst, who are imprisoned [DT 110]. In the Gospel of John, we reflect on what it means for God to become flesh (man). What did he experience that we cannot understand by ourselves? And what does it teach us about the very nature of Jesus.  

This isn’t Marxist or Socialist or American Liberal and it does not romanticize being poor. It asks each one of us to confront what it is we cannot understand about God simply by ourselves. And then it tells us to go be friends with them. Wherever people are frail, sick, injured, poor, homeless…there is a mysterious bit of wisdom they possess that forces the healthy and rich to understand that no textbook or bank account can teach. That is the nature of Christian revelation.

Those who live on the streets have a perspective about survival that is very difficult to understand unless you get to know them. I think of my friend Sylvia who lived at 24th and K NW in Washington DC for many years. She checked on her fellow friends every day, and in the process taught me something deeper about human dignity. And she is a clear reminder that no one is too poor to be a protagonist (main character) for their own life and others too.

There has always been, and always will be poverty.

But the theological landscape (the current conditions we live and how we can understand God in the current times) are very different from even a few hundred years ago.

Let’s time travel and compare it to the modern age.

1600 Antwerp, Spanish Netherlands (Belgium)

Main Issue: Survival and a “good death”

·       Belief in God: Most people were Catholic, and just about everyone believed in God. Catholic communities easily stick together.

·       Response to fears: Church bells would ring during storms to invoke spiritual protection. People would give to the poor to gain their favor, as the Church taught that poverty is where the mercy of God shows himself.

·       Community: The Catholic Church organized society. There were no pews in the parish because the church wasn’t just for Mass, it was also a gathering spot, school, and community center.  

·       Social bonds: People generally had to stick together in order to overcome famine, illness, etc.

Compare that to…

2025 Arlington, Virginia USA

Main issue: loneliness, isolation. Christian community no longer forms as a default social group, and we become more defensive and argumentative to “win people over.”

·       Belief in God: 34% attend a church, 15% Catholic (according to US Religion Census 2020). Many denominations to choose from.  

·       Response to fears: Pharmacies, cleaning supplies, police officers in schools. [No foreign invasions/war locally]

·       Community: No single organizer. Arlington county government, policing, resources. Schools, civic groups, and churches.   

·       Social bonds: Online friendships, less time together. Single family homes and apartment units with little interaction between neighbors.  

This is not the first time there has been a major shift in the way the world organizes itself. Sometimes the way we speak and think about ourselves has to change if it wants to continue being believable. For example, for many centuries the Christians saw martyrdom as the best way to be a good Catholic. But by the time Saint Francis of Assisi came around (1300s) everyone was Catholic and few (if any) people were dying for their faith in Europe. How could we become the best if no one was willing to kill us?

Saint Francis realized that the theological landscape is different. People are moving away from their farms and into the cities, where disease and indifference made reality very cold and distant.  In the document, Pope Leo talks about how he and others brought about renewal of the Christian faith through founding “orders, such as the Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinians and Carmelites, represented an evangelical revolution, in which a simple and poor lifestyle became a prophetic sign for mission, reviving the experience of the first Christian community (cf. Acts 4:32). The witness of the mendicants challenged both clerical opulence and the coldness of urban society.” [DT 63]

“Francis’ poverty was relational: it led him to become neighbor, equal to, or indeed lesser than others. His holiness sprang from the conviction that Christ can only be truly received by giving oneself generously to one’s brothers and sisters.” [DT 64]

Is this phenomenon happening again?

Ask yourself, are we once again moving away from one another and becoming distant and cold in society? Is social media offering us a window to see the differences of others as the dignity of Christ teaching us, or is it something for us to judge hiding behind the safety of a phone or computer?

What are the lessons Dilexi Te offers?

There are three lessons for those who want to go deeper in Christ in this modern age.

·       1. We can't renew the Church with a book. Simply teaching rules (doctrine) and praying isn't enough; we need real-world Christian relationships with others, and that no longer happens naturally without a lot of effort. [DT 112]

·       2. We cannot leave it up to the market. We cannot simply put money in a basket and walk away  -- we have to live the relationships that Christ entrusted to us. Present, in person, and sometimes uncomfortable.  [DT 113]

·       3. We can't just minister to the powerful. Those who are poorer than us are actually teaching us about Jesus (the Word who became flesh). The less we spend time with them, as friends and equals, the less we can truly impact the world. [DT 114]

I’ll leave you with this quote from the document:

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus concluded one of his celebrated orations with these words: “If you think that I have something to say, servants of Christ, his brethren and co-heirs, let us visit Christ whenever we may; let us care for him, feed him, clothe him, welcome him, honor him, not only at a meal, as some have done, or by anointing him, as Mary did, or only by lending him a tomb, like Joseph of Arimathea, or by arranging for his burial, like Nicodemus, who loved Christ half-heartedly, or by giving him gold, frankincense and myrrh, like the Magi before all these others. The Lord of all asks for mercy, not sacrifice... Let us then show him mercy in the persons of the poor and those who today are lying on the ground, so that when we come to leave this world they may receive us into everlasting dwelling places.”  [DT 118]

Mercy as both the inferior and superior place. But always learning.

The shock of mercy

The picture for this blog post is of the Trattoria de Gli Amici in Rome. The Catholic community of Sant’Egidio runs this restaurant where the food is prepared by individuals with Down Syndrome. As you can imagine, most people think, “aww, what a beautiful mercy.” As if it is a pity and a charity. I overheard someone saying one time, “Ok, let’s go support them and enjoy a simple meal.” Wrong! Eat there and you are likely to think it’s one of the more delicious and flavor filled restaurants in town. Mercy is often shocking to the senses of the one who offers it. The point of the restaurant is not just to provide steady employment but to prove a point of just how capable these individuals can be.

The temptation is to see mercy as a transaction. In the case of the restaurant staffed by individuals with disabilities, I’m tempted to see my dollars going to work to preserve them from despair. But once the flavors hit the palate, I start to wonder, have I underestimated them? Are they as talented, as dignified, as capable as me?

Having spoken with more than 250 individuals who were navigating their exit from the Catholic Church, a persistent tension became obvious: mercy is often seen as a tool for correcting someone, and learning how to do it with a smile. The person giving mercy often believes they have the superior place of truth and the person receiving it is void. The other view of mercy is a much more humble one that leads to a two-way relationship and the person GIVING mercy often feels as if they have learned more about the risen Christ than the one being forgiven.

Is it kindness or control?

When is mercy genuine kindness, and when does it run the risk of accidentally silencing dissent? The difference often lies in the posture of the person extending mercy to the person in need.

In the first view, which is mercy as a tool for correction, the person operates from a perceived state of perception and look down on the failures of the other. That kind of “mercy” even when done with a smile and patient tone can feel more like a judgement and friendship with conditions. For those who feel like they may be unwanted in their parish, something commonly reported by remarried, gay, or lapsed Catholics, the experience of mercy becomes alienating.

This is where the second, more profound view of mercy enters: the person offering mercy recognizes it as a path to their own personal spiritual growth. This perspective aligns with that of Bishop Bonny, the prelate in Antwerp where our same-sex blessing was conducted in May. He says that mercy is fundamentally about listening to the Sensus Fidei, the sense of faith of the whole people of God. Offering and receiving mercy go well beyond the person and the situation at hand. Giving mercy becomes about entering that place of mutual learning. For example, how can one offer a blanket judgement of remarried, gay, or lapsed Catholics without acknowledging how the pains they have endured in some ways mimic the suffering of Christ on the cross. Moreso, how can one offer mercy without learning how many people on their second (civil) marriage have found stability and positivity in a way that their initial sacramental marriage did not. Where is God at work in the person? Mercy is not about keeping someone stuck but moving forward side-by-side.

Holiness and the Embrace of Fragility

This distinction in mercy mirrors two differing views of holiness. For many, holiness is an on/off state of perfection, achieved through strict adherence to the rules. For others, holiness is a lifelong process of becoming everything one was made to be. It is a lifelong journey of opening your heart up to God and striving despite setbacks, progress, and fragility. In this context, offering mercy becomes less focused on the corrective action but as a part of the messy path to holiness for the one who is walking alongside the sinner.

How many people have told me they doubt God because of the suffering, illness, and violence they have witnessed in their own community or family? A lot.

See, the incarnation (Jesus becoming flesh) according to theologian Fr. Diego Arfuch is God opening himself up to vulnerability and suffering. God became fragile and lived among our fragileness. That is the human condition. That is the place in which God shows he understands the messiness of our lives and that he is always faithful in walking it with us. Fr. Diego Arfuch then explains the resurrection from the dead is God’s promise to us that our suffering has been consummated and validated. As Catholics, we too believe in the future resurrection of the dead for our own bodies.

Mercy is the closeness of the living God amongst our weaknesses. It is a way to genuinely and sincerely say that, “I believe in something better for you” while at the same time, “your [messy] life experiences have taught me something deeper about Christ.” And as you can imagine, the only way to do that without being snarky and condescending is to genuinely walk a life of friendship among others without judgement.

When mercy is understood through the lens of fragility, the need to correct or judge dissipates. Instead, the faithful are driven to an active and creative charity, learning to live with their fragilities and not despite them. When you offer mercy, do so because you are seeking to learn about the risen Christ from someone else.

The trattoria in Rome is an example of how encountering someone else’s fragility brings me an inch closer than my previous understanding of how God’s creativity is at work through the dignity of others. We always underestimate the abilities of the people who show mercy to at first. If I have acted superior to the crosses of others, how much too, do I underestimate the power of the resurrection when Christ consummated the fragility of mankind into something meaningful for all of us?

References

Arfuch, D. (2024). Ideas for a Theology of Fragility: The Proclamation of Divine Mercy in Latin Patristics, pp. 25-44. FIAMMA VIVA Series, TERESIANUM ROMA.

Nullens, P. Mercy and Sex in the Roman Catholic Church.

Moral theologian: When the Risen One manifests himself, he does so without any spirit of revenge

The following is reprinted with author permission. Fr. Diego Puricelli is a professor of moral theology and a priest of the Diocese of Belluno-Feltre.

“Now, the very experience of the first witnesses reminds us that the joy of the resurrection is not accessed in a straightforward, linear way. In fact, from the accounts of the appearances, we can glimpse a kind of common thread that links all these narratives: the rejection of spectacle. The Risen Lord, in fact, does not choose to manifest himself to everyone in a clamorous and convincing way. His presence is not imposed. On the contrary, he reveals himself with extreme discretion, almost with modesty, and only to a few. He lets himself be recognized through simple, almost negligible signs: the bandages left in the tomb, the heart that burns along the way, the net full of fish, the testimony of the women. In short, the presence of the Risen One is extremely discreet.

What's more, when the Risen One manifests himself, he does so without any spirit of revenge, but rather offers—as in John's account—the signs of a freely lived love: "the hands and the side." No reproach, no preaching, no petty remarks. The gestures of the Risen One are so essential that they cannot be misunderstood: “Peace be with you! Receive the Holy Spirit.”

Thus, the resurrection manifests itself in the community of believers: as a relief from one's own sin and a liberation from one's own fears. The Risen One, in fact, knows well the poverty of his church, but he also knows that in this weak and fragile humanity lies the mysterious strength of authentic witness. After all, it is true: only those who have known their own limits, only those who have experienced their own sin, can become authentic guardians of God's forgiveness, without falling into idealism and without fleeing the truth of life (how many times, instead, do we think the opposite, that God wants us to be perfect... and we don't accept our failings, we don't forgive ourselves...).

From this first expansion of life and joy, Thomas, the disciple who best of all embodies our struggle to immediately commit to a renewal of life, is initially excluded.

How many times do we, like Thomas, not believe the announcements of hope and new life that the Lord gives us, ending up remaining isolated, on our own, licking our wounds. It's true. As the then-Cardinal Bergoglio wrote back in 2005, in a wonderful little book titled "Healing from Corruption," "a painful journey always demoralizes, having experienced defeats leads the human heart to get used to them, so as not to be surprised or suffer again if others come."

Yet, in Thomas, there is something that betrays his desire to access a new relationship with his Lord. In fact, eight days later, Thomas is still there, with the group of disciples. He hasn't gone away, disappointed and upset. Thomas had the courage to disobey the protests of his wounded heart, choosing to bring his own pain closer to the hope of his brothers.

Only then does the Lord finally appear to him, to introduce him as well into the mystery of his pierced and risen love: "Put your finger here and see my hands; stretch out your hand and put it into my side; and do not be unbelieving, but believing!” Indeed, one never enters the joy of the resurrection alone, set apart, but always and only together with others, together with our brothers and sisters in faith.

Today, we too are called to live our journey of faith like Thomas. I think there is no more beautiful icon! Men and women of doubt, uncertain, wounded, but at the same time capable of confident surrender, of remaining despite everything, even when things around us often say the opposite.

In this journey, we are not alone: the Risen One walks beside us, draws near precisely where our hands tremble and our hearts close. It is He who, with the gentle strength of his wounds, gathers our questions, sustains our weariness, and transfigures our pain.

And so, truly blessed are we if we have the courage to remain: because he who remains, even in the darkness, will see the light; and he who trusts, even without seeing, will enter into endless joy!”

End post! This post has been freely shared with written permission of the author.

Getting Unstuck: Advancing Aquinas, Conflict Analysis, and Complex Moral Theology

Too often we allow people to feel stuck. We don’t yet have ways to remedy all these situations in a way that allows them to move forward. After all, that’s what this is about. Working toward holiness is that long messy process where we learn how to course correct our tiny everyday (almost unperceivable) invisible actions that justify the self à and we learn to point them back toward God.   (i.e. recognizing that inner bubbling anger when we’re sitting in traffic and about to honk the horn. The person next to you might not realize this inner-conflict is forming until after you have blown up in anger!)

That is because for the past 150 years, the Church has relied on a method of judging morality that is hyper-fixated on judging actions. For its time, this was an extremely important discipline, especially coming into an age of democratic revolution and massive technological change like the invention of the lightbulb, people were beginning to question everything. And naturally, the Church needed to lock these conversations down. The Church wanted to make sure people were firmly rooted in truth.

But over time, we’ve gotten a little bit stale. The moral questions people are facing are often more complex than what your average parish faced in 1879.

When we get stuck in a moral dilemma, a classic, rigid Catholic approach known as Neo-Scholasticism often tells us to look at three things:

·       The action

·       The circumstances

·       The goal

Their thought was firmly rooted in Aquinas except that we shifted the spotlight right onto the action. The circumstances and the goal became after thoughts. Now most of the time, this works quite well.

For example. If we’re just judging the action by itself, we’d all say that telling a lie is objectively and always wrong.

Dominican Friar Fr. Samuel Lovas attempted to grapple with the very complicated dilemma that happened quite a bit during WWII. What is a Catholic in good conscience to do if someone comes to the door looking for Jews or others to round up?  Fr. Samuel attempts to defend the idea that telling a lie is always wrong, no matter the circumstance or the goal:

“Of course, it would be understandable if the proprietor of the house in this situation of extreme anxiety did not react perfectly. But a morally impeccable answer to the menacing Nazis would be something like “Come and look,” which would fit well with Aquinas’s permission “to hide the truth prudently, by keeping it back,”

(See article here: Question of Dispensation of the Intrinsically Evil Acts According to St. Thomas Aquinas. 4 June 2024)

I understood his logic but it hurts to read. Is a Catholic in good conscience really supposed to believe that is an answer that prompts the virtues of faith, charity, justice, temperance, prudence.  I hope not.

We have become stuck. Hyper-fixated on the action without trying to understand how circumstances and intentions play into that.

There has got to be a better way.

I’ve come to appreciate Fr. Aristide Fumagalli’s Symbolic theory of Action to keep advancing the theology of Aquinas just as Neo-scholastics did 150 years ago. He says that the Church has to understand the symbol behind the action.

It’s a lot like the example I opened this post with where I said, people are rarely fighting about what they tell you. Catholic theology has to look deeper and understand the second reason. The real motivation.

In the most recent podcast episode, we talked about a classic human resources situation where a supervisor might tell someone to stop hugging the female employees.

Why do you keep hugging them? The person replies, “To show my appreciation for their work.”

But when told that another person was working equally as hard and is comfortable receiving hugs, they didn’t seem interested.

It turns out that not every hug is really a show of collegial appreciation. Sometimes the action symbolizes power, boundary-crossing, and a disregard for personal space.

Fr. Fumagalli’s point is that we do not need to get caught up in a legal battle over whether an action is right/wrong, and if so, how at fault are they. He helps us recover the intent of Aquinas but expressing it in a more modern way. Understand why people are acting the way they are, and point out where virtue can be built (or where vice needs to stop).

It does not have to be as hard as we make it. Catholic theology has all of the tools to handle the modern problems we face.

Source: Symbolic Theory of Action by Fr. Aristide Fumagalli can be found

“Una Teoria Simbolica dell’azione”

Fumagalli, Aristide. "Il Giudizio Morale Sulle Azioni Umane: Dalle Fontes Moralitatis al Discernimento Prudenziale." La Scuola Cattolica, vol. 148, 2020, pp. 67-93.

When People Say “Take Up Your Cross” - Helping Catholics Reclaim the Truth of its Meaning

At the heart of embracing your cross is learning how to accept the life you have, and not the one you wish you had. 

Italian theologian and philosopher Martino Rossi Monti has written about how attitudes toward suffering have evolved. A thousand years ago, the representation of Christ’s suffering was often intended to provoke a visceral, empathetic reaction to the person looking on. It was a ‘sensory’ presence — not about hiding.  The people of the day did not want to simply endure pain, they wanted to be changed by it. A transformation! 

But as modern medicine has evolved, we have moved from putting pain out in the open and instead made it something more private. Another reality of being in Louisiana is the very active death row not far from me in Angola State Prison. I couldn’t help but recall stories of throngs of people attending executions in the Middle Ages. But now, we physically separate the inmate from a dozen witnesses by thick glass. And immediately after, the curtain is drawn and bleach chemicals used to cleanse the room. 

Monti says that public pain was once deeply connected to the spiritual life — even public executions. But now, we’ve pushed it off to the problems of biology and the spiritual life is largely excluded. As a people, we are increasingly seeking to hide from pain and embarrass those who experience it. How does this relate to LGBT and divorced/remarried Catholics today? (Do they have pains— that even if we disagree with the outcomes—that we don’t fully understand?) 

All of this is the opposite of the Little Cajun Saint, 12 year old Charlene Richard. She didn’t hide her cross. She carried it into the light and the cheerful acceptance of the life she had (ill, short, tragic) transformed others around her. Her cheerful acceptance didn’t erase pain, but it allowed others to witness Christ’s power at work. The mystery of embracing the cross is a mystery of accepting the life you have. It allows us to move forward and not stay stuck. 

For the rest of us, the cross is not an invitation to deny the traits or to impose shadows onto us, but to accept our situation and life it with authentic joy and faith according to exactly how God made us. 

We have to stop telling people “take up your cross” until we ourselves understand what that means. Essentially, we are volunteering to go deep into the wounds and be transformed by the person suffering. And for those in pain, this vulnerable openness will help you joyfully embrace — not run from— reality. 

Moral theology and the drive to be the best in my (Catholic) community

Unfortunately, not well-equipped with the tools of moral theology (the branch of theology that deals with complex situations, seeking to help people discover and become absolutely everything God made them for…aka the path to holiness), I started learning the rules and how to defend the Catholic Church from attacks.

This was both good and bad. It was complicated. As described in my bio, I had inklings that a lot of people around me were holding secrets or perhaps not living the perfect life it seemed. But I didn’t want to challenge that. I wanted to defend the Church and not draw attention to the things within (the parish and myself) that made public perception about the church complicated too.

I drew closer to the Traditional Latin Mass. I started to see my purer form of liturgy as better than others, even if I accepted that most people would not be willing to come over to my side. I followed the rules rigorously. I was going to discipline myself into become the best Catholic there was.

It required a lot of reading Church history, apologetics, listening to YouTube videos in Latin. You were not going to outwork me.

This desire to do things. To be that best Catholic. It was both wonderful and at the same time complicated and transactional. As we heard in the Gospel of Luke (beginning at chapter 12:49), Jesus came to bring fire on the earth, and he wished it had already been kindled. What did he mean? The perception of the Gospel is that Jesus lived in a highly religious time, where everyone went to synagogue together, and followed all the rules. Basically, seems like his job should have been pretty easy.

No. That drive to confirm and soothe one’s own desires to belong and be seen as the best among the chosen people of God totally missed the point according to Jesus. He came to show us a more transformative path. One deeply rooted in unity.

As a thought experiment, imagine you become stranded on a desert island. There are no priests, no sacraments. The only other survivor is a fellow Catholic with a significantly more “liberal” theological upbringing. In this bare reality, stripped of all of the markers of Catholicism I was holding onto. Suddenly that doesn’t matter anymore. We have to survive. And instead we start by needing to know each other’s skills. Can you build things? Can you cook? Do you have medical skills? I’m sure, the two survivors of the island would pray together and over time form their own mini-culture that builds each other up within whatever they have left within Catholicism.

Even without the ultimate sacrament of unity (the Eucharist) they are able to form a spiritual bond that forces them to see how the other fills a void. They need one another, but hopefully are able to form a Christian friendship within that. Hopefully they both learn something new about what it means to have a deep faith that lasts the test of time and crisis. This is a form of complementarity.

The path to holiness is not one that is concerned with recognition. It is about opening up, discovering, allowing oneself to be surprised, and contemplating how God is present in the Eucharist, which he leaves behind as a true presence to foster our unity.  

The Tragedy of Good Intentions. When Saints Unknowingly Place Discipline over Mission.

This is not to tarnish the saint. Not at all. I wish we reflected more on how the saints could have done better or acted differently. Too many people think that sainthood is out of the question for them because they’ll never live up to those standards. That’s untrue.

My hope is that you read this article and understand how to separate the good from the complicated. And use that to follow Saint Thomas More’s example in the best way possible for 2025.

Historically, there was an uncomfortable understanding between kings and the Church that they needed each other, and that together they could make society something to be proud of. Behind the scenes it was rarely so simple, but at least they generally knew to demonstrate respect for the other.

This works out well in a society where the Church is the organizer of society. Schools, charities, hospitals, etc. If you wanted to be social and part of the community, you generally had to be connected to your parish in some ways. This is no longer the reality.

By lamenting our past powers, we sometimes get distracted from our mission to live a sacramental life (one that encounters Christ through unity with the people of God and in the sacraments), and instead try to project a way of “Christian life” onto others.

This tragic loss is best understood through the lens of Lieven Boeve’s “theology of interruption.”    [Watch this lecture by given by him titled “Interrupting Love”]

In some parish communities, the obsession with rules and tradition ultimately misses the point. When we prioritize the institution over the wellbeing of the person, we create individuals who experience a deeply theological sense that they are unwanted.

Lieven Boeve says that when Catholicism becomes too focused on “continuity” or preserving established customs, doctrines, and institutions – it risks becoming static. No one fears a dying institution. This blind tradition can make it difficult for the faithful to experience the living God when they receive the sacraments. Almost like an addition to the Eucharist, a “quick hit” that rapidly fades instead of being conformed to the living Christ—the very God who showed us how to go into the streets, to encounter people, and accompany them.

Boeve teaches that the genuine encounters with Christ happens in the moments of “interruption.” Interruptions are the surprises, the crises, or challenges that disrupt what we assumed to be true and force us to rely on a faith-filled response in order to be creative and overcome what is now causing us to stumble.

From the perspective of moral theology (which on this site we define as the branch of Catholic theology that works through the messiness of life to help you discover and become everything that God made specifically you for), the ultimate good is not the preservation of the institution of the Church, but a faithful and compassionate response to the difficult ongoing conversion of the world in accord with God’s vastly creative design.

Lieven Boeve believes tradition is not a static object, but a living stream of faith that must be re-interpreted and re-engaged in every historical moment.

Back to the Crisis of 1514 and Saint Thomas More

A cloth merchant by the name of Richard Hunne had just lost his 5-week-old son, Stephen. The family was grieving. And like any good Catholic family of the time they went to their parish for a funeral and burial. These days, it’s a custom to request a financial stipend from the family (in some parts of the United States it can be $300 or more. However, it is not allowed to deny a funeral because someone cannot afford it). It’s a nasty reality of living in this world. It costs money to run a parish, and we rely on the faithful to give what is needed to keep it running.

But perhaps during that time in London, the people were sensing a bit of greed from their clergy. As if the money were more important than providing the sacraments. That’s a cultural problem, but the people increasingly felt as if they had no recourse.

The priest in this case demanded the baptismal garment of the deceased infant as a form of payment. The grieving father refused. After all, how many other belongings would the father have to remember his infant son by? Let’s give the priest the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was more concerned with upholding the tradition of respect for the Church and its authority.

This dispute led to a tit for tat, public and ugly dispute between the father and the priest.

Theologian Lieven Boeve would point out that the parish in demanding a payment for the funeral is an example of an institution sensing a threat to “continuity.” And the raw grief and sincere sense of injustice—and probably accompanied by a sense of rebellion and anger—was a powerful “interruption” to the predictable routine of the parish collecting a fee and enforcing a custom.

Richard Hunne was ultimately accused of heresy. A grave misstep that made matters worse. The man ended up in the church jail inside the Cathedral in London. It was there that he was murdered.

Now enters Sir Thomas More, who was then serving as the Under-Sheriff of London. Despite his history of being a champion for principled and compassionate Catholicism, Sir Thomas More was unable to overcome his loyalty to the priests in order to see reality.

Hunne’s murder was staged to look like a hanging, but the coroner determined that he had marks consistent with a struggle. The general public had already been aware of an escalating dispute between this grieving father and the parish.

Saint Thomas could not bring himself to believe that the clergy would have done anything to violate Richard Hunne’s dignity. And after the fact, he was present at the trial where the decaying body of this grieving father was put on display and tried for heresy.

The public outrage was widespread.

And behind the scenes, I am willing to believe that Thomas More was outraged too. The record of his life shows that he wanted a just society firmly rooted in a sacramental life. On the record, he was a stern enforcer of the law.

The Moral Lesson

There is a lot of irony in how this dispute paralleled Saint Thomas More’s own fateful execution two decades later. The public outrage and dismay seemed to have swayed in the saint’s favor at that time.

We can see how loyalty to the law and tradition above mercy and charity can cause spiritual harm.

Saint Thomas More’s loyalty to the Church is admirable and something I hope we can all take to heart. If I had the opportunity to interview him today, I would want to know how a “theology of interruption” would lead him to take a different path in handling cases much earlier in his career.

And in the ways that we as a Church body failed to recognize the dignity of Richard Hunne, how can we prevent the same tragedies today. How can we prevent the unnecessary sense of “being unwanted” that so many people feel in the pews.

Acting a Fool. Luke 12 and when we rely on rules to solve spiritual crises

There's always a bit of a sting when a priest or someone in authority corrects us for asking the wrong question or being too bold, especially when we approached them out of respect for their authority.

This Sunday, we'll hear the Gospel reading from Luke 12 where someone demands Jesus instruct his brother to share an inheritance. Imagine yourself in that situation. At the time, the firstborn was entitled to a greater proportion of inherited wealth—typically land—in line with their responsibilities to protect and preserve the family's well-being. Similarly, everything within Catholic Canon Law aims for the good of souls.

Just as many of us are accustomed to seeking a priest's advice when life gets difficult, a rabbi would have been the perfect person to help settle a family dispute during Jesus' time. So, imagine the surprise when Jesus replied, "Friend, who appointed me as your judge and arbitrator?"

There's always a bit of a sting when a priest or someone in authority corrects us for asking the wrong question or being too bold, especially when we approached them out of respect for their authority.

Let's consider some reasons why the man might have wanted a larger share of the wealth. Perhaps he was hungry, or embarrassed to be "lesser," or maybe he was thinking of his own wife and children. However, I rarely find that such motivations are ever purely selfless. Even if he approached Jesus out of legitimate need, there was likely an inkling of jealousy and greed.

During a pilgrimage to Rome in 2021, I found myself stepping over or around several homeless individuals to enter the basilicas. I stopped to ask a priest a seemingly righteous question: "Father, what should I say to a homeless person?" In my heart, I expected him to commend me for thinking of the poor. But that wasn't his response.

He gently chided me and told me to take a seat. The priest completely bypassed my question, instead reminding me that I am to consider every individual as someone the Father equally desires to see in heaven, someone Jesus equally died for on the cross, and someone Mary sees as her own child.

Initially, I expected the priest to provide a simple, standard operating procedure for how to greet the homeless and move on without being rude. Spiritually, I was acting the "fool"—a term Jesus uses in this story to refer to someone who acts without thinking about God and His wisdom.

Neither the man pleading with Jesus to judge a family dispute, nor I, recognized we were facing a spiritual crisis. We both, in our own ways, asked the Church to address our personal discomfort. We both took a question of legitimate justice and demanded an answer that ultimately focused on the self.

This Sunday, as we listen to the Gospel, let's ask the Lord to illuminate the moments where we have treated the Church and its authority as a means to justify ourselves. Are we using our faith to lift ourselves up as arbiters of truth, or are we truly answering the call to step out of our comfort zones and be present with the needs of others?

The silence of vulnerability. 3 Practical Steps Towards a Safer Church

In our Church, we are blessed with countless holy men and women serving in leadership, from the Vatican's diplomatic corps to the priests guiding our local parishes. These dedicated individuals are often deeply virtuous and prayerful, striving to serve God and His people.

Yet, many of these good people are also keenly aware of a painful truth: in the not-so-distant past, the Church struggled immensely to identify and address individuals who posed a risk to vulnerable children and adults. Being a saint, unfortunately, doesn't automatically equip someone with the skills of law enforcement or prevention. And so, our Church has had to adapt, and adapt quickly.

From my own observations, several factors make it challenging for us to truly excel in protecting the vulnerable and ensuring everyone feels safe and wanted within our Church:

The Silence of Vulnerability

1. A Mutual Incentive for Secrecy: Interactions between a vulnerable person (whether a child or young adult) and a Church representative—be it staff, a volunteer, or clergy—can often become shrouded in secrecy. Those who are vulnerable often carry personal secrets, shame, or a deep desire for approval from authority figures. These feelings can make it incredibly difficult to say "STOP" when something feels wrong.

2. The Deceptive Aura of "Holiness": Someone who has harmed another rarely projects an outward appearance of unholiness. In fact, they might even compensate for their moral failings through highly pious or charitable actions. Let's be honest, it's always hard to publicly question someone who is seen as a pillar of the community.

3. The Peril of "Coaching": I've experienced this firsthand. During spiritual direction, I received "coaching" on how to conceal aspects of my own sexuality from a vocations director. As a young adult eager to please my priests and genuinely discerning my vocation, I initially believed this guidance was a blessing from God. It took me a long time to realize I was being coached to lie. I trusted the advice because it came from a priest I trusted. This highlights how easily trust can be exploited and how screening processes can be circumvented.

4. The Lack of Incentivizing Risk-Taking for Safety: Consider a holy man serving in the Holy See's diplomatic corps. If he does his job well, remains flexible, and is approachable, he has a strong chance of rising through the ranks, potentially becoming an Archbishop. A dramatic change in Church structures or a perceived mishandling of a scandal could jeopardize that ascent. This creates an unspoken incentive to maintain the status quo and avoid actions that might draw negative attention, even if those actions are vital for protecting the vulnerable.

The bottom line is that there's often an all-around incentive for secrecy—or at least to keep difficult things hushed.

For me, the profound challenge is how we address these issues without casting a wide suspicion on our dedicated clergy, volunteers, and Catholic school teachers. Unfortunately, from my own experiences sharing stories with priests and Church leadership, I've sometimes sensed a lack of urgency in preventing people from being vulnerable in the first place. Too often, the Church seems willing to listen after harm has occurred, but less focused on proactive prevention of sexual harassment or abuse.

3 Practical Steps Towards a Safer Church

Here are three practical suggestions for how we can move forward and ensure everyone feels truly wanted and safe within the Church:

1. Clarifying Canon Law 518: Freedom, Not Imprisonment.

Canon Law 518 generally states that parishes have territories. The beautiful intent of this rule is to emphasize a pastor's responsibility to care for all souls within their parish boundaries—it's meant to be a mercy, ensuring no one is overlooked. However, this can be tragically misused. Someone with ill intentions might tell a person experiencing questionable behavior within their parish that "the Church, in her wisdom, has given you a home," implying they must stay there rather than seeking help elsewhere. The devastating result is that individuals either leave the Catholic Church entirely or remain, feeling trapped and subjected to harm by an authority figure.

Theologically speaking, can we truly imagine Jesus establishing the authority of individual parishes by zip code, restricting where people can seek spiritual care? That's certainly not the true intent of the Church. This is an incredibly easy fix. We need clear clarification that the intent of Canon Law 518 is to eliminate gaps in pastoral care, not to impose a community upon the faithful or restrict their freedom to seek help and spiritual guidance elsewhere if they feel unsafe or unwelcomed.

2. Empowering the Vulnerable in Confession.

Imagine a sign posted in every confessional that simply states: "If at any point you decide you are not ready to make an act of contrition, you are free to excuse yourself."

Unfortunately, vulnerable individuals sometimes view the Sacrament of Confession as appearing before a judge rather than a compassionate physician of Christ. After sharing their deepest secrets in the sacrament, a vulnerable person experiencing harassment or questionable requests faces a critical, internal decision: do I stay or do I excuse myself?

Any solution to this challenge must acknowledge that the vast majority of priests and experiences in confession are profoundly good and healing. We must be careful not to cast suspicion on anyone. At the same time, we must empower individuals to care for themselves. If you ever find yourself in a situation during confession where you feel unsure or uncomfortable, please politely excuse yourself, letting the priest know you'd like to continue another time. Then, reach out to a trusted friend or another Catholic and ask if the questions you were asked felt "normal." Your safety and peace of mind are paramount.

3. Stronger Training in Domestic Violence for All Parish Staff and Clergy.

The Church rightly focuses a great deal of pastoral care on married individuals. However, we have less pastoral experience with unmarried men and women who are living together, especially when they face difficult home situations. For obvious reasons, someone in a pre-marital cohabitation situation who fears being chided for it is unlikely to approach a priest with a difficult, potentially abusive, home situation.

While priests are certainly not therapists, caring for you and accompanying you on your journey to heaven means creating a safe and non-judgmental space where you can express concerns about your home life. Equipping all parish staff and clergy with stronger training in recognizing and responding to domestic violence would be a vital step in ensuring that everyone who walks through our doors feels seen, heard, and supported, regardless of their living situation.

These are just a few ideas, but they represent a starting point for deeper reflection and action. The goal is not to foster suspicion, but to build a Church where every person, especially those who feel unwanted, knows they are truly valued, safe, and loved by God and His people.

What are your thoughts on these suggestions? How else can we ensure our Church is a place where everyone feels wanted and secure?