Theology
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Service, not imposition: the church’s place in public life
Leo insists the church respects political autonomy, affirming separation of church and state andrejects Christian nationalism outright.
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Pope Leo started a conversation that Silicon Valley cannot ignore
Journalism and Innovation Professor Jeff Jarvis is clear: Pope Leo does not declare war on AI or technology. Those expecting papal condemnation will be disappointed. This encyclical is something rarer — a thoughtful framework for the long conversation ahead, intended not for this moment but for generations.
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The liturgical discipline of mystery
Water, oil, fire, bread and wine do not merely represent something else — within the liturgical action they do something. They engage the body, awaken memory and invite response. Over-explanation risks leaving the assembly understanding more while perceiving far less.
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Questions about AI are really religious questions
Every new technology carries an implicit vision of what it means to be human. That makes the deepest questions about AI fundamentally religious ones – even if much of the developed world would prefer the Church stayed silent on matters of profit and progress.
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The theological emptiness of the Petrocchi report
Phyllis Zagano’s analysis in America and in Flashes dismantles the Petrocchi Commission’s conclusions on women’s diaconate, showing they rest on no historical, theological, or anthropological documentation.
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Ancient ordination rites for women deacons sit in Vatican
Medieval liturgical manuscripts housed in the Vatican’s own library describe women being ordained to the diaconate during Mass, with the laying on of hands, invocation of the Holy Spirit and the placement of the stole by the bishop. Zagano’s research brings these forgotten rites back into focus.
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“Pure-blood” bishops sound more like Harry Potter than the Gospels
Jesus measured faithfulness by whether people fed the hungry and visited the imprisoned, not by tracing clerical lineage. The doctrine of Apostolic Succession, built on mistranslation and selective memory, distracts from the radical simplicity of the Gospel’s own demands.
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Does the Bible give Israel divine rights over Palestinian land?
Genesis texts promising land to Abraham’s descendants are frequently cited to justify Israeli occupation. But modern biblical scholarship and Paul’s letter to the Romans challenge any claim that God permanently favours one people over another.
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Doing theology in times of political crisis
The collision of political sovereignty and ecclesial authority exposes fundamental questions of legitimacy within a fragmented normative landscape. Appeals to tradition obscure irreducible complexity, crisis functions as rhetorical apparatus, and the inexorable dynamics of imperial decline reconfigure authority itself—compelling discernment between authentic moral critique and instrumentalised religion.
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When clericalism becomes narcissism, the altar turns into a stage
Clerical narcissism perpetuates itself when a newly ordained priest is assigned to a pastor who demands unquestioning obedience, creating successive generations of leaders hostile to collaboration.
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