Benedict XVI’s “Last Conversations,” the recently published book interview with journalist Peter Seewald is not only a sort of final chapter of the Pope Emeritus’s biography – he will soon turn 90 – the book is a clue to interpreting the Church that shows once more just how few people really understand

With his second motu proprio in a few months, Pope Francis completed one part of the much discussed Curia reform, thus closing the era of reforms that followed Blessed Pope Paul VI’s rationale. The new dicastery for Integral Human Development does not simply mark the shutdown of the Pontifical Councils for Justice and [...]

There is something prophetic in the choice of the European spiritual crisis as the topic for discussion by Benedict XVI’s former students during this year’s meeting. Benedict XVI, even as Cardinal Ratzinger before his election to the papacy, addressed this issue with in-depth analysis on multiple occasions, while he lamented the fact [...]

The appointment of Bishop Kevin Farrell of Dallas as Prefect of the new dicastery “Laity, Family and Life” took many by surprise. True, for a long time there has been a strong push from the US bishops to have a new influential representative in the Curia, after Msgr. Peter Bryan Wells, former Assessor [...]

According to Vatican rumors, Statutes of the new Vatican dicastery “Charity, Justice and Peace” are to be published September 1. The newest dicastery will replace the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, the Pontifical Council for Migrants, the Pontifical Council Cor Unum and the Pontifical Council for Health Workers. All of the competences [...]

Pope Francis confirmed the return of commissions by establishing on August 2 a commission to study the issue of women in the diaconate. The composition of the commission, however, leads one to think that its task is completely different from that of the commissions Pope Francis established at the beginning of his [...]

Nowa Huta means “new foundry.” It’s a block of Krakow built around a foundry under the Soviet regime. It was built without God. There was no space nor any possibility to build a church in Nowa Huta. That is, until Karol Wojtyla, then Archbishop of Krakow, involved the people there, brought pressure upon [...]

In choosing Greg Burke and Paloma Garcia Ovejero, respectively, as Director and Deputy Director of the Holy See Press Office, Pope Francis confirmed his preference for a less clericalized Church. For the first time, two laypeople are at the helm of the Holy See Press Office, even though – it must be said [...]

Pope Francis’s challenge for this second phase of his pontificate deals with two issues: the first, dialogue with other religions, based on the need for religious leaders to make a greater impact in the public arena; secondly, the effort to consolidate his administration so that it is less personalist and more equipped with a [...]