Fr Raymond de Souza, Author at Catholic Herald

Fr Raymond de Souza

The CDF has been marginalised. Will Archbishop Scicluna’s appointment reverse that?

December 20, 2018

If there was a Catholic “man of the year” for 2018, many people’s candidate would be Archbishop Charles Scicluna of Malta. Or perhaps “fireman of the year”, as he was deployed to extinguish the conflagration ignited by the Holy Father’s incendiary trip to Chile in January. He put out the fire threatening Francis, but saving

How Joseph Ratzinger saw past the Church’s established structures

December 13, 2018

For the future Pope, the Holy SpIrit was 'speaking up' through the new movements which bypassed old bureaucracies

The values that defined Bush 41

December 06, 2018

George Herbert Walker Bush – the 41st US president – never wrote a post-presidential memoir. His son, George W Bush – the 43rd president – gave a possible explanation in the book he wrote instead, entitled 41: A Portrait of My Father. “Dorothy Walker Bush [41’s mother] was a woman of strong faith,” Bush 43

The Church in the Global North is ever more defined by the South

November 29, 2018

Theresa May’s reported refusal to offer asylum to Asia Bibi in Britain has earned her well-deserved criticism. The case is a straightforward one of offering refuge to a victim of persecution who, despite her acquittal on transparently false blasphemy charges in Pakistan, would certainly be killed by a fanatical mob should she emerge from hiding.

The scandal of China’s political bishop

November 22, 2018

Cardinal Joseph Zen, emeritus of Hong Kong, was in Rome earlier this month to hand-deliver a letter to Pope Francis about the escalating persecution of the Catholic Church in China. This is becoming something of a pattern in Rome, where bishops urgently arrive to ask for a correction in the Holy See’s foreign policy. The

A bombshell in Baltimore

November 15, 2018

It has been evident for some years, but now it has been hammered home with breathtaking emphasis. Pope Francis has decided that he, and he alone, will hold bishops accountable for sexual misconduct or negligence in handling cases of sexual abuse. It is a high-risk strategy that brings every case to the heart of the

The Byzantine Jesuit who stood up to Moscow

November 10, 2018

Fr Robert Taft was a rare figure in Rome who spoke up for persecuted Ukrainian Catholics

The Jesuit who stood up to Moscow

November 08, 2018

“To hell with Moscow!” It is manifestly unfair to sum up thus the long and distinguished academic career and ecclesial life of Fr Robert Taft, the American Jesuit of the Byzantine Rite who presided like a colossus at the Pontifical Oriental Institute (PIO) in Rome for 46 years. The greatest contemporary scholar of the Byzantine

A whiff of the sacristy

November 01, 2018

Rome I giovani! Yes, the young people! It seemed as if every synod speech, media interview and commentary exalted over the presence of the young “auditors”, some three dozen 20- and 30-somethings invited to spend the three-plus weeks of the synod with the Holy Father and the bishops. They were protagonists, not merely spectators, we

Despite the Pope’s best efforts, the Youth Synod lacked any sense of urgency

October 31, 2018

The evangelical zeal I've encountered in many young people was missing from the Synod

A healing Synod?

October 27, 2018

The Youth Synod has gone better than many thought – so far

A healing synod?

October 25, 2018

Rome As the youth synod draws to a close this week, it appears that some of the wounds from the synods of 2014 and 2015 on the family have been healed. Those highly divisive synods caused a widespread diminution of trust in the synod process. Trust destroyed is difficult to fully restore, but accounts from

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