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When Pope Francis encourages compassion for those judged and excluded by the church, I can't really include myself among those alienated masses. I'm not gay. I'm not a woman. I'm not divorced. But he speaks to me as a lifelong Catholic estranged from a hierarchy too often in conflict with what seem to me to be basic Christian values. True, Francis has not changed the policies that perpetuate the discrimination I find so objectionable. What he is changing is the way we relate to one another, shifting emphasis from the doctrine of the church to the message of the Gospel....

If the latest poll is right, John Kerry may not have a prayer. In a Sept. 27 survey of 969 registered voters, 60 percent of respondents said George W. Bush is a man of strong religious faith, compared to just 18 percent for John Kerry. Should that be troubling to the Democratic nominee? The same Washington Post/ABC News poll found that 7 percent of voters named "strong religious faith" as the single most important character trait for a candidate—more important than qualities such as "honest and trustworthy" or "strong leadership." Democrats are scrambling to appeal to that 7 percent, plus...

Far from the razor-wire capped protest prison in the shadow of the flag-bedecked Boston Fleet Center, progressive activists shared center stage with their Democratic Party champions before a crowd of 1,000 at the Roxbury Community College Gymnasium. The occasion was a founding conference for a new organization, the Progressive Democrats of America (PDA) (www.pdamerica.org) which vows to build a sustained movement to transform the Democratic Party into a force for social justice and environmental sanity. Referring to the event in Roxbury and Tuesday's "Building the Peace Movement" Forum at the Boston Paulist Center, which was attended by a standing room...

Kerry has a different language, a different connection to ritual, and a different relationship to Jesus than that of Bush. John Kerry was never a Prodigal Son. His faith journey contains no leave-taking and triumphant return, no revival, no conversion on the road to Damascus. Unlike President Bush--a Protestant who experienced a profound conversion at age 40 under the Rev. Billy Graham's tutelage--Kerry has been a steady, churchgoing Catholic literally since the day he was born. For Americans who have grown accustomed in the last four years to a certain kind of spiritual biography, Kerry's will seem starkly different. He...

As the Democratic Party nominated a Catholic for president for the first time since 1960, the Catholic priest who gave the final words at the convention alluded to the church's concern with the Democratic Party's support for abortion rights by calling on God to ''guide every citizen of our United States to cherish all life." The Rev. John B. Ardis spoke at the close of the convention, around 11:15, to a packed FleetCenter crowd that just seconds earlier had been dancing and shouting to celebrate Kerry's nomination. As the priest talked, his arms outstretched and palms facing upward, the nominees,...

A Curious Kind of Catholic A look inside John Kerry's preferred place of worship, the Paulist Center. It's where people who hate the Church go to church. by Jonathan V. Last 07/25/2004 2:55:00 PM Larger type view Increase Font Size Printer-Friendly Email a Friend Respond to this article Boston CATHOLICS ARE USED TO having people protest outside their churches. Because Catholics are one of the last socially acceptable objects of bigotry, it seems as though activist groups are always showing up at their churches. Gay and women's rights groups make up the usual crowd, although these days it's common to...

Kerry Snubs Cardinal on DNC Blessing United Press International The Democratic Party is asking a Paulist priest instead of the archbishop of Boston to bless its national convention, the Boston Globe reported Monday. The campaign of Democratic presumptive presidential candidate John Kerry has announced that it has asked the Rev. John B. Ardis, director of the Paulist Center, to deliver the traditional invocation at the four-day national convention beginning Monday night, the Globe said. Kerry spokesperson Stephanie Cutter told the newspaper that the campaign had not asked the Catholic archbishop of Boston, Cardinal Sean O'Malley to give the blessing. We...

It's where people who hate the Church go to church. Catholics are used to having people protest outside their churches. Because Catholics are one of the last socially acceptable objects of bigotry, it seems as though activist groups are always showing up at their churches. Gay and women's rights groups make up the usual crowd, although these days it's common to find hecklers there to beat up on Catholics for the priest sex-abuse scandals. However, today may mark the first time a Catholic church has been picketed by anti-abortion protestors. Dozens of such protestors were gathered on Park Street in...

January 1979, Volume II, Number 1   by Michael Davies  "Few names stand out with more brilliance in the history of living worship and liturgical reform than that of Paul VI. While many men and women, lay persons, popes, bishops, deacons and priests, have contributed to the worship life of Christians through the centuries by their painstaking efforts in developing texts and ritual actions, handing them down from generation to generation, no one, not even the greatest reformers of the past, Gregory the Great and Pius V, have done more to enable Catholics to pray as a Church than...

BOSTON - The sanctuary where Sen. John Kerry (news - web sites) regularly receives Communion attracts Catholics uncomfortable with some of the Vatican (news - web sites)'s orthodox teachings or who otherwise feel alienated from the Roman Catholic Church. The Paulist Center's congregation includes gay couples, whose adopted children are baptized there, unlike in some other Boston parishes. In November, its leaders refused to read aloud during Mass from a letter opposing gay marriage, as requested by the Massachusetts bishops.The congregation is not geographical, but ideological, drawing people from as far as away as New Hampshire, said Drew Deskur, the...

April 11, 2004 Kerry Ignores Reproaches of Some BishopsBy KATHARINE Q. SEELYE OSTON, April 11 — Rejecting the admonitions of several national Roman Catholic leaders, Senator John Kerry received communion at Easter services today at the Paulist Center here, a kind of New Age church that describes itself as "a worship community of Christians in the Roman Catholic tradition" and that attracts people drawn to its dedication to "family religious education and social justice."Mr. Kerry's decision to receive communion represented a challenge to several prominent Catholic bishops, who have become increasingly exasperated with politicians who are Catholic but who deviate...