The Catholic Difference – Page 4 – Madison Catholic Herald Archive (2001-2025)

At the point at which John Paul II began his papacy in the first volume of my biography of him, Witness to Hope, I borrowed some thoughts from Hans Urs von Balthasar and tried to explain a bit of the uniqueness of the papal office:

An impossible task

“To be pope is to take on a task that is, by precise theological definition, impossible. Like every other office in the Church, the papacy exists for the sake of holiness. The office, though, is a creature of time and space, and holiness is eternal. No one, not even a pope who is a saint, can fully satisfy the office’s demands.

The Catholic Difference

On February 20, 2013

George Weigel

The legacy of Benedict XVI

At his election in 2005, some thought of him as a papal place-keeper: a man who would keep the Chair of Peter warm for a few years until a younger papal candidate emerged.

In many other ways, and most recently by his remarkably self-effacing decision to abdicate, Joseph Ratzinger proved himself a man of surprises. What did he accomplish, and what was left undone, over a pontificate of almost eight years?

The Catholic Difference

On December 5, 2012

George Weigel

Using sacred language for sacred acts

It was just about a year ago that U.S. parishes began using the new translations of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal — an implementation process that seems to have gone far more smoothly than some anticipated.

Wrinkles remain to be ironed out: there are precious few decent musical settings for the revised Ordinary of the Mass; the occasional celebrant (not infrequently with “S.J.” after his name) feels compelled to share his winsome personality with the congregation by free-lancing the priestly greetings and prayers of Mass.

The Catholic Difference

On November 15, 2012December 18, 2024

George Weigel

The crisis of a second Obama administration

President Obama’s re-election and the prospect of a second Obama administration, freed from the constraints imposed by the necessity of running for re-election, have created a crisis for the Catholic Church in the United States.

The Catholic Difference

On November 1, 2012March 16, 2023

George Weigel

What voting in conscience means

American political campaigns have never been for the squeamish. With the sole exceptions of George Washington’s two uncontested elections, every presidential campaign has seen its share of vulgarity, skullduggery, and personal disparagement.

The Catholic Difference

On September 6, 2012

George Weigel

The war on (little) women and other insanities

The Supreme Court’s minor mistakes have few systemic consequences. But when the Supremes make a big mistake, the error tends to seep throughout the entire political process, poisoning everything in its path.

That was what happened with the court’s 1857 Dred Scott decision, which intensified the passions and accelerated the dynamics that led to the Civil War — and to 600,000 Americans killing each other.

The Catholic Difference

On August 23, 2012

George Weigel

Religious liberty and its contemporary enemies

Independence Day concluded the Fortnight for Freedom mandated by the U.S. bishops, a two-week period of reflection and prayer on the defense of religious liberty that began on the vigil of the liturgical memorial of St. Thomas More.

In 2012, we may be grateful that none of us faces the headsman’s axe, as More did in Tudor England. But neither should we be indifferent to, or flippant about, the 21st-century threats to religious liberty that surround us.

The Catholic Difference

On March 22, 2012

George Weigel

It’s not just an issue in Pakistan and China

Thirty-some years ago, I spent a fair amount of time on religious freedom issues: which meant, in those simpler days, trying to pry Lithuanian priests and nuns out of Perm Camp 36 and other GULAG islands.

Had you told me in 1982 that one of my “clients,” the Jesuit Sigitas Tamkevicius, would be archbishop of Kaunas in a free Lithuania in 2012, I would have thought you a bit optimistic.

If you had also told me, back then, that there would eventually be serious religious freedom problems in the United States, I would have thought you a bit mad.

The Catholic Difference

On March 15, 2012

George Weigel

Converts and the symphony of truth

Why do adults become Catholics? There are as many reasons for “converting” as there are converts.

Evelyn Waugh became a Catholic with, by his own admission, “little emotion but clear conviction”: this was the truth; one ought to adhere to it.

Cardinal Avery Dulles wrote that his journey into the Catholic Church began when, as an unbelieving Harvard undergraduate detached from his family’s staunch Presbyterianism, he noticed a leaf shimmering with raindrops while taking a walk along the Charles River in Cambridge, Mass.; such beauty could not be accidental, he thought — there must be a Creator.

The Catholic Difference

On December 28, 2011

George Weigel

The cardinal Down Under

In the Baltimore of the 1960s, my canny pastor devised a neat scheme for getting “Father Visitor” (as the confessional doors read) to fill in during the summer for his vacationing curates: bring over newly-ordained Australians from their studies in Rome.

There were no language issues (save for those of, er, accent); by the standards of student priests fresh from the Urban College of Propaganda Fidei, the young Aussies were recompensed handsomely and got to see something of the United States; it was win-win, all around.

Thus in the summer of 1967 I met Fr. George Pell of Ballarat, who, with the oils of ordination still wet on his forehead, spent several months at my parish before embarking on doctoral studies at Oxford.