The Roots of the Present Crisis

Douglas Farrow, Professor of Christian thought and holder of the Kennedy Smith Chair in Catholic Studies at McGill University, Montreal; given in Rome, on April 22, 2017

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It is not too much to speak of a crisis in the Church today, a crisis in several dimensions. There is a crisis of morality. There is a crisis of doctrine. There is a crisis of authority. There is a crisis of unity.

True, such crises are more common than some like to think. Perhaps the closest analog, however, comes from the sixteenth century. Half a millennium ago, the fathers of Trent had to defend the sacraments governing confession, communion, and conjugality from coordinated, if somewhat chaotic, attacks. The same three sacraments are threatened again today. They had to defend the Church’s unity and authority against the Protestant principle – against the inevitably divisive claim that the meaning of holy scripture could be determined independently of tradition and without accountability before the entire Church. That too is necessary today. They had to weed out persistent abuses both in the sacramental life and in the governance of the Church, while striving to recover a unified vision of Christian existence in which justification and sanctification, freedom and obedience, hold together. This also is urgently required in our own time. Continue reading »

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Contemplative monk creates comic book to teach faith

catholicnewsagency.com/news/contemplative-monk-creates-comic-book-to-teach-faith/

“The Truth is Out There,” by Eastern Catholic monk Amadeus.

By Carl Bunderson

Denver, Colo., Jul 17, 2013 / 04:10 am (CNA).– Building on his lifelong love of comic books, an Eastern Catholic monk has authored a short graphic novel, “The Truth is Out There,” to help explain the truths of the faith in an understandable way.

“The reason I did it in cartoon format was because I didn’t think my friends would read it any other way,” Amadeus — which is the author’s pen-name — told CNA in a recent interview.

“The Truth is Out There” tells the story of two space-age mail carriers who begin discussing the meaning of life at a coffee bar, and as they search for truth, one comes to find it resting in the Catholic Church.

In the book’s introduction, Amadeus recounts that the work began a few years before he entered the monastery, during a conversation he was having with three friends of his who were all “born and raised Catholic.”

“It became appallingly clear how little any of us knew our faith…I had just stumbled upon the greatest problem of my generation of Catholics,” wrote Amadeus. Continue reading »