Communion
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The Modern History of Standing for Communion January 15, 2025
The posture of Catholics receiving Communion has been a subject of discussion in recent weeks, after Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago wrote a column last month asking that people “receive Holy Communion standing.”While kneeling is known to have been ...
Why Is This 1,700-Year-Old Creed So Important? January 08, 2025
The Religion Guy’s answer: No text ever written can compare with the impact of the Nicene Creed in this way: Whenever the world’s two billion-plus Christians gather for their regular Communion services, most recite these ancient words to define their...
Why Welby Had to Go January 02, 2025
On a rainy Tuesday afternoon in November, a single social-media post sent shock waves through the Church of England and the Anglican Communion. It was a photograph of a letter printed on official stationery and placed on a polished wooden surface. In...
Nancy Pelosi's Communion Ban to be Resolved by Vatican December 12, 2024
Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi has quietly turned to Rome to resolve her two-year-old dispute with the San Francisco archbishop over her receiving Holy Communion.Pelosi for the first time has revealed that Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone's order that sh...
New Cardinals Cements Pope’s Legacy of Diversity and Global Dialogue December 09, 2024
In a solemn Mass at St. Peter’s Basilica on Saturday (Dec. 7), Pope Francis welcomed 21 new cardinals supporting the pope’s diverse vision for the church.“Today, in a particular way, I would like to say to you, dear brothers who are being made cardin...
Christian Militias Opposing Hezbollah in Lebanon December 02, 2024
In April this year, Pascal Sleiman, a coordinator for the Lebanese Forces (LF) party—Lebanon’s largest Christian party—was abducted near Byblos, north of Beirut, and later found dead in Syria. Hezbollah promptly launched a disinformation campaign, at...
To Oppose Racism, a Priest Won’t Lead Communion November 29, 2024
Nearly three years had passed since the Rev. Cayce Ramey had decided to stop leading Communion services when he opened an email last spring to learn whether his choice would cost him his priesthood.He had steeled himself for this moment, sure that th...
"Where Are the Nine?" A Thanksgiving Reflection November 27, 2024
While on his way to Jerusalem, passing between Samaria and Galilee, Jesus was “met by ten lepers, who stood at distance,” pleading for his mercy and healing. By standing at a distance, the lepers displayed caution, afraid of infecting others, includi...
Anglicanism Is in Its Worst Crisis Since Henry VIII November 21, 2024
Being the archbishop of Canterbury, the chief cleric of the Church of England, has always been a risky business. Modern incumbents are not likely to be murdered before their own altar, beheaded by Puritans, or burned as a martyr. But being the leader...
A Great Christian Witness, Too Little Known in the West November 20, 2024
The Venerable Andrey Sheptytsky, who died eighty years ago on November 1, 1944, was one of twentieth-century Catholicism’s outstanding figures, whose remarkable life and heroic ministry as leader of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church spanned forty-t...
What Now for the Anglican Communion? November 15, 2024
The Church of England and the wider Anglican Communion are in uncharted waters after the voluntary resignation Tuesday (Nov. 12) of Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby.Welby quit just five days after he vowed that he would not resign, while apologi...
The End of the Synod… November 13, 2024
When Francis was elected pope in 2013, “synodality” was a technical term used mostly by ecclesiologists and Church historians. But a synodal Church was the hope of many who did not have the word for it. The conclusion of the second assembly in Octobe...
Church of England Head Under Pressure to Resign Amid Abuse Scandal November 11, 2024
The head of the Church of England, spiritual leader of the global Anglican Communion, is under pressure to resign after an investigation found that he failed to inform police about serial physical and sexual abuse by a volunteer at Christian summer c...
The New Divide in Global Anglicanism November 06, 2024
For the last fifty years the Anglican Communion has been divided over the doctrine of marriage. That came to an end in April 2023 when Global South Anglicans declared they’d had enough. Anglican bishops representing 85 percent of the Anglican Communi...
All Saints Die November 01, 2024
November 1 marks All Saints’ Day on the church calendar, when many denominations remember the communion of all believers of all time, including the faithfully departed.That the church instituted this holy day should come as no surprise. We Christians...
Is Gretchen Whitmer Mocking the Eucharist? October 14, 2024
Catholics were incensed this week to see a new viral video featuring Michigan Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer offering podcaster Liz Plank a Dorito on her tongue. Plank is seen kneeling in front of Whitmer with her tongue out as a nacho-cheese chip ...
A Catalogue of New Sins: A Catholic Self-Criticism Session? October 08, 2024
On the occasion of the last phase of the Synod on Synodality, the Vatican has just published a new list of sins to add to the long cohort of human failures in doing God’s will. But are these really new sins? The exercise has all the hallmarks of a Ca...
