Like many bloggers, I’ve been getting requests for information on the situation with Father John Corapi. I don’t know him personally, and I don’t have any insider information, so that leaves me in the same position as everyone else: trying to figure out the situation based on the information that is available.

I’ve looked at the official statements that have come out so far, which Pat Archbold has been helpfully linking and quoting, and I’ve been reading commentary on the subject on the blogosphere and around the Internet.

I thought I would comment briefly based on what I’ve been reading.

I’ve seen several people say that they hope that the allegations made against Father Corapi aren’t...READ MORE

In the years I have been maintaining my personal blog (www.jimmyakin.org), I have uploaded something over 4700 posts (according to current statistics). This makes it a bit hard to remember everything I’ve put up.

Fortunately, I have the memories of readers to remind me, and one reader in particular has reminded me that there are some posts that I had forgotten to include in the Annual Lent Fight that I uploaded yesterday.

These posts concern, in particular, the Church’s laws concerning Ash Wednesday and its laws regarding fasting.

As a result, I’ve done some link updating.

Since Ash Wednesday is a day of both fast and abstinence, I have chosen to repeat here the relevant links, along...READ MORE

In my previous post I said we’d look more closely at Pope Benedict’s statement in his new book concerning Jewish people and how they are not collectively responsible for the death of Christ. We will get to that, but in view of the fact that tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, I decided to use today’s post as an occasion to provide information about Ash Wednesday and the season of Lent, which follows it.

Over on my personal blog (jimmyakin.org) I have hosted for many years a collection of posts on this subject. Together, they are known as the Annual Lent Fight—because many of these questions have been disputed (at times harshly).

This is because there are a lot of popular ideas (read: legends) out...READ MORE

The long-awaited second volume of Pope Benedict’s work Jesus of Nazareth is about to come out. (You can pre-order it here!).

This was the book he had started before his election to the papacy and which, in spite of the burdens of his office, he determined to press on with.

Because he’s now pope, the book is attracting vastly more attention than if he had become a private theologian at the end of John Paul II’s reign, and as with everything pope—the press is determined to make the most of it, even when they don’t have the facts quite right.

The book isn’t even out yet, but based on excerpts that have already been released, the press is already having a field day.

For once, however, they...READ MORE

Frances Kissling, who made her career and her reputation by sticking a finger in the Catholic Church’s eye for decades as head of the inaccurately named “Catholics for Choice,” has written a piece for the Washington Post in which she argues that abortion leaders are inflexible, change-resistant ideologues who are stuck in a timewarp and are using outdated, myth-based arguments that have caused them to lose ground, ground she says they cannot recover, and that they risk losing the abortion fight entirely.

Let’s hope she’s right!

Especially about that inflexible change resistance leading to losing the abortion fight entirely. That’s the best part.

Unfortunately, she hasn’t seen the light...READ MORE

There’s a story that’s been percolating around some quarters for the last few days, but until recently it hasn’t breached the English-speaking news net. It’s likely to.

The nub of the story is this: In 1970 the young(er) theologian Joseph Ratzinger signed a letter to the German conference of bishops suggesting that the Church reconsider the practice of clerical celibacy as the norm for the Latin Church.

Given the MSM’s fixation on the Catholic Church and sex—and particularly its dislike of clerical celibacy—this story could potentially gain traction.

So far, it’s been picked up by the UK-based Catholic Herald, by one of USA Today’s blogs, as well as a number of other outlets, but it...READ MORE

According to this piece by NPR,

A former Roman Catholic priest who left the church to marry his girlfriend after the two were photographed embracing on a South Florida beach is getting a new TV show.

Alberto Cutie (KOO’-tee-ay) announced Tuesday he will host the daily talk show “Father Albert” on Fox stations. A Fox spokeswoman says the show will be aired later this year in cities including New York and Los Angeles. It will be picked up nationwide if it does well.

GAH!

Okay, now that you’ve picked yourself up off the floor, note that this is only a program in local markets. More detail is provided by The Hollywood Reporter:

Father Alberto Cutie, a bestselling author of self-help books...READ MORE

That’s the sensationalistic headline of this story in the New York Times. As usual, it’s by Laurie Goodstein, and as usual she makes significant errors in her reporting that make the story more sensationalistic in a way that (just coincidentally) paints the Holy See in an unfavorable light. (So . . . what’s up with that, Laurie? You’ve been on the beat long enough that you should be better informed on these matters.)

As with previous stories of the same nature, this one involves a document from back in the 1990s that has now come to the attention of the press. It was a letter written by the Apostolic Nuncio of Ireland (that’s basically the Holy See’s ambassador to Ireland, though he also...READ MORE