Free Republic

Since 2005, Father Larry Snyder has served as the president of Catholic Charities USA, the national office for about 1,700 local Catholic Charities agencies and institutions....He spoke in early December with Register senior editor Joan Frawley Desmond... Congress and the White House are engaged in deficit reduction negotiations to prevent the U.S. government from going over the so-called “fiscal cliff.” The outcome could involve cuts in social spending and reductions in charitable tax deductions. How are Catholic agencies faring?We keep track of national trends for government funding. [snip] We are especially concerned about changes to the charitable-tax deduction. The...

Everyone knows American #1 at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, but for all the spotlight on California's own Cardinal William Levada, what's sometimes forgotten is that the former Holy Office's second-ranking Statiunitense isn't much further down the totem pole. In 2002, then-Cardinal Ratzinger recruited Dominican Fr J. Augustine DiNoia -- then an official at Washington's John Paul II Center and the former head of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' secretariat for doctrine -- to serve as the CDF's undersecretary, the dicastery's #3 post. When the newly-elected Pope Benedict appointed Levada to take the place held by...

Why is he so strenuous in his defense of the family as founded upon marriage between a man and a woman? He explains why in his message in preparation for Easter. In it, he writes that “eros is part of the very heart of God,” and therefore... by Sandro Magister ROMA, February 20, 2007 – Tomorrow, Ash Wednesday, is the beginning of Lent for the Catholic Church of the Roman rite. And Benedict XVI will start it with a penitential procession on the Aventine hill, with the celebration of Mass in the basilica of Santa Sabina, and with the...

Upon Joseph Ratzinger’s election to the papacy in April 2005, many commentators correctly noted that Benedict XVI’s self-described theological “master” was St. Augustine. The fifth-century African bishop is widely acknowledged as a giant of the early Church whose life and writings are counted, even by his detractors, among the most decisive in shaping Western civilization. Pope Benedict’s first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, is full of citations and themes drawn from Augustine’s texts. The encyclical’s publication appears, however, to confirm that another, more contemporary thinker has influenced the way that Benedict XVI views religion in free societies and the nature...

PARIS (Reuters) - Encouraged by Pope Benedict's encyclical on love, a Roman Catholic bishop and a group of Christian intellectuals in France are urging the Vatican to reopen the debate on its ban on artificial birth control.Bishop Francis Deniau told the Catholic magazine Le Pelerin this week that Benedict's first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" (God is Love), which was widely praised for the positive way it spoke about sexual love, was a hopeful sign for possible change.Sociologist Catherine Gremion noted the encyclical -- the highest form of papal writing -- did not condemn Catholic couples "who do not manage to...

Pope shares thoughts on loveBy Richard N. OstlingThe Associated PressJust in time for Valentine's Day, Pope Benedict XVI issued an encyclical letter on love. Popular prejudice thinks a Roman Catholic priest talking about human love is "like a blind man talking about colors," Archbishop Paul Josef Cordes, president of the Vatican's council for charity, told reporters with a humorous touch unusual for Vatican news conferences. Turns out, a celibate, 78-year-old pontiff has perceptive things to say in his first encyclical "Deus Caritas Est" ("God Is Love"). Moreover, he says them with a clarity that could begin notable improvement in papal...

Why I chose love as the theme of my first encyclical   Benedict XVI has published his first encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, God is love. Why did he write it? Why did he choose this theme? What was his intention? The Holy Father responds to these questions in the text below. The cosmic excursion in which Dante wants to involve the reader in his Divine Comedy ends before the everlasting light that is God himself, before that light which at the same time is the love “which moves the sun and the other stars” (Paradise XXXIII, verse 145). Light and...

ROMA, January 25, 2006 – Benedict XVI made his first encyclical public today, and like all papal encyclicals it takes its name from the first words of its Latin version: “Deus Caritas Est,” God is love. Why did he write it? Why did he choose this theme? What was his intention? Pope Joseph Ratzinger himself responds to these questions with crystalline clarity in the text reproduced below. The pope read this text the morning of Monday, January 23, to the participants at an international meeting promoted in the Vatican by the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum.” In reality, it is a...

POPE BENEDICT XVI’s first important pronouncement has been delayed by an unprecedented tussle over the final wording between key Vatican departments and the Pope’s German household staff. Vatican officials said that the delay in publishing the encyclical, Deus Caritas Est, on the subject of love, was because of the Pope’s busy schedule over Christmas. Other Vatican sources said, however, that the reason was a disagreement over the translation of the final 50-page draft into various languages, inclu- ding English and Italian. The official language of encyclicals is Latin. Andrea Tornielli, the Pope’s biographer, said that Pope Benedict had put the...