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From the NOR Dossiers
Pope St. John Paul II
Revisiting & Redefining Universal Salvation
November 2024Let us acknowledge that there is a Hell, and that there are souls in it. Is there a way to reconcile that reality with the concept of universal salvation?
VIEW ARTICLEIt’s Time the Church Declared the Personhood of the Unborn
May 2023With our advanced scientific knowledge of fertilization and fetal development, there is really nothing standing in the way of a definitive doctrinal affirmation.
VIEW ARTICLESubsidiarity of the Body
January-February 2023The subsidiarity of the body is a testament to the theology of the body; it says that the human body is a marvel fit to host the human soul.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Pontifical Academy for What?
December 2022The Academy for Life’s horizons are so broad that it seems to have lost sight of its mission to promote and defend the Church’s pro-life teachings.
VIEW ARTICLEConveying the Message of Humanae Vitae to the People of Today
May 2021Church doctrine regarding contraception is one of the least understood and accepted parts of her conjugal and sexual ethics.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Communist Era: Golden Age of Catholicism in Poland?
September 2019While the Church across Western Europe suffered reform gone wild, Poland was isolated enough to preserve her identity and fidelity.
VIEW ARTICLEKindred Spirits, Fellow Victors
May 2018Paul Kengor is an accurate historian who recognizes all the atrocities the USSR committed and the blight it cast across the 20th century.
VIEW ARTICLEIs the Pope Looking to Lambeth?
November 2017Why would Pope Francis form a group to study the composition of the 1968 encyclical if the intent is not to fundamentally change its message?
VIEW ARTICLEReturn to the Message of Fatima
May 2017All nine popes who have guided the Church since 1917 have had a personal devotion to Our Lady of Fatima.
VIEW ARTICLEMaking Sense of Papal Economics
October 2015Communism was founded on false anthropology, reminds John Paul, and that was its undoing. Consumerism can be undone the same way.
VIEW ARTICLEWhy the Popes Failed to Act
June 2014A central part of the Legion's response-- that "charges had already been thoroughly examined and found baseless"-- explains why three popes ignored the allegations.
VIEW ARTICLEAn Epilogue for the Disappointed
April 2013We can't wait on the conversion of Russia; we have to attend to our own personal conversion and work for the conversion of the Church and our own nation.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Culture War & the Catholic Church
April 2012In the face of rising opposition, will the Church blossom, as John Paul predicted, or will she contract, as Benedict expects?
VIEW ARTICLEOn Fatima & the Private Interpretation of Private Revelations
November 2011Interpretation of the three ‘secrets’ entrusted to the children at Fatima has been subjected to the vagaries of private interpretation by otherwise faithful Catholics.
VIEW ARTICLEA Hero of History Is Beatified
May 2011In the final analysis, can any of the objections voiced against his beatification stand up to the proof that God Himself intervened in the temporal world in response to the heavenly intercession of Pope John Paul II?
VIEW ARTICLEFrom Guiding Lines to Institutional Reality
May 2011In the case of both the Latin Mass and the ordinariates, Pope Benedict's response was to revolutionize a policy put in place by his predecessor.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Pope & the Laborer
May 2011I saw John Paul II in prayer on television, then I saw a common laborer in prayer in a church. I knew that each was far richer than I could imagine.
VIEW ARTICLEJohn Paul II: A Character Study
April 2010The heart of his greatness was beyond any culture, because it came from his union, in prayer, with his Lord and the Lord's Blessed Mother.
VIEW ARTICLEIs Divine Mercy Sunday Liturgically Correct?
April 2010Not celebrating this feast has the effect of diminishing Easter by restricting the reception of the very gifts Christ offers us.
VIEW ARTICLEBusiness Ethics According to Pope John Paul II
September 2009All our actions in enterprise must be, according to John Paul II, "in conformity with the dignity and integral vocation of the human person."
VIEW ARTICLEIntimate Memories of the Late Pope
April 2009The Pope went boldly into the public square because he couldn't see the Church confined to the sacristy. He thought the Church should be wherever "man is."
VIEW ARTICLEPope John Paul II's Theology of the Body
March 2009The grace of marriage allows the parties to become one flesh and calls forth from them the same love Christ has for His Church.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Last Secret of Fatima
February 2009For anyone who still harbors doubts about the authenticity of the third Fatima secret as revealed by the Vatican, Tarcisio Cardinal Bertone's book is a must read.
VIEW ARTICLESt. Faustina as a Doctor of the Church
October 2008Her huge diary is more than a memoir; it is a major corpus on one of the fundamental doctrines of Catholicism -- redemption.
VIEW ARTICLETruth In Crisis?
September 2008Arguments used to dissent from the Church's teaching on contraception could easily apply to other areas, such as her teaching on charity.
VIEW ARTICLEUnderstanding Divine Mercy Sunday
March 2008Don't let any pastor say no to celebrating Divine Mercy Sunday at every Mass that day, just like any other feast day.
VIEW ARTICLEIt's Time to Wake Up
April 2006When people hear the priests talking about a Feast of Mercy that can give them total forgiveness of sins and punishment, they will perk up and respond.
VIEW ARTICLEA Case Study in the Theology of Apology
September 2005As for apologies to homosexuals, the saga of San Diego Bishop Robert Brom could be instructive.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Man Who Was Ratzinger (Part II)
September 2005In answer to objections that two Roman rites are confusing and "disunifying," he explained that various Roman rites have always existed side-by-side.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Man Who Was Ratzinger
July/August 2005It was not surprising that the election of Pope Benedict XVI met with much gnashing of teeth among liberal pundits (and much cheering elsewhere).
VIEW ARTICLEReflections on Pope John Paul II's Legacy
June 2005There is now a general assumption that because the pope gets so much attention, he must have global tasks commensurate with worldly publicity.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Spiritual Hazards of Wealth
April 2005Leo XIII's Rerum Novarum, promulgated in 1891, remains closely in touch with the true mission of the Catholic Church: the salvation of souls.
VIEW ARTICLEReflections on the Church Hierarchy
February 2005Has there ever before been a time in Church history when moral and disciplinary laxity in the hierarchy has had to contend with a free and active press?
VIEW ARTICLEGraffiti in Warsaw, Mormons in Krakow, & Basements in Auschwitz
May 2004In Poland the presumption is that truth is one, and there is only the true Church. If it's not Catholic, it's not true. The spiritual maze is simple to navigate.
VIEW ARTICLECatholic Confusion at the Very Top
March 2004We do not trust in princes -- even sometimes the princes of the Church -- but in the solemn promises of Jesus Christ.
VIEW ARTICLEThe "New Springtime" for the Church Is a Long Ways Off
January 2004A new book tells the story of the calamitous decline of the Catholic Church in America since 1965.
VIEW ARTICLEIs Vatican II Ancient History?
June 2003"What might have happened if, instead of Karol Wojtyla, the conclave had chosen a different man, someone who took the name Pius XIII?
VIEW ARTICLEThe Meaning of Marital Love
December 2000Review of Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II's Anthropology
VIEW ARTICLEWould Wojtyla & Ratzinger Have Been "Weeded Out" of Sacred Heart Seminary?
November 2000The Archbishop of Detroit will ordain only two men next year. Quelle surprise!
VIEW ARTICLE'Power to the People' Can Only Mean Property to the People
January 2000Capitalism and socialism begin with a practical materialism that elevates things over man or, worse, reduces man to a thing.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Bark of Peter & The Barking of Dr. Laura
November 1999"My show has brought more people back to the Catholic Church than anything the Pope has ever said."
VIEW ARTICLEEpiscopal Authority: Use It or Lose It
May 1998A certain sense of episcopal consensus means not only those who are here now but also those who have gone before us.
VIEW ARTICLEWhy the Frathouse Boy With the Adam Smith Tie Doesn't Look So Smart These Days
March 1996Champions of the global economy accepted a trade-off: a richer world but with a good many poorer Americans.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Urgency of Timeless Questions
April 1995Review of At the Center of the Human Drama: The Philosophical Anthropology of Karol Wojtyla
VIEW ARTICLEOn the "Greenness" of Catholicism & Its further "Greening"
December 1989We can make peace with nature only by restoring harmony within ourselves. It is holiness that manifests our true nature in the plan of God.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Pope Confounds the Neoconservatives
April 1989Review of Aspiring to Freedom: Commentaries on John Paul II's Encyclical "The Social Concerns of the Church"
VIEW ARTICLEThe Pope as Playwright
March 1989Karol Wojtyla cofounded a theater in which scenery, costumes, technical and visual effects, even acting, were kept to a minimum: a “theater of the word.”
VIEW ARTICLECafeteria Catholicism & the Pope's Encyclical
May 1988John Paul II's encyclical repeatedly stresses the fact that "the Church's social doctrine adopts a critical attitude towards both liberal capitalism and Marxist collectivism."
VIEW ARTICLEReflections on Marriage After Vatican II
May 1986It is because of this intimate connection between the Eucharist and the remarried person’s prior marriage, that reception of the Eucharist must be refused.
VIEW ARTICLEGod Is Mercy
July-August 1985In February 1931, Jesus appeared to Faustina with a message that launched the mission for which he had been preparing her from the beginning.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Pope’s Troubles with America
September 1984Are we only drive-bound or are we at the constant call of drives yet able to be their sovereign: moral and spiritual masters of our particular lives?
VIEW ARTICLEJournalism, Theology, & History
September 1984Newspapers, confined to messages in black and white, often think in black and white and do not perceive true, profound traditionalism.
VIEW ARTICLEImpressions of Nicaragua — Part II
May 1984In the well-to-do sections of Managua, the Pope’s picture may be seen displayed proudly on the doors of houses, in any number of windows.
VIEW ARTICLEA Christian View of Economic Virtue
March 1984Let us consider the free-market principle that competition should be the governing factor of the economic order.
VIEW ARTICLEA Coming “Crackdown” in the U.S.?
January-February 1984Any serious effort to free American Roman Catholicism from the influence of neo-modernism will involve a confrontation with some of the bishops.
VIEW ARTICLEBishops as Signs of Compassion, Fidelity & Contradiction
November 1983The bishop must announce to the rich and poor, to the powerful and weak the fullness of truth, which sometimes irritates and offends, even if it always liberates.
VIEW ARTICLEAnd Such a Pope!
September 1983The papacy brought John Paul II to worldwide attention, but the qualities of the man and his thought have impressed many even outside the faith.
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