Catholic Church

As the Conclave begins

Sheila Liaugminas | 12 March 2013

The world is watching Rome and the Roman Catholic Church, only as it does it the big moments. The attention that was riveted instantly on the papacy when Pope Benedict XVI announced his retirement has only intensified over the subsequent weeks. Now it’s in overdrive, as the College of Cardinals enters the Conclave to elect a new pope.

Pope Benedict’s retirement fatigue

Sheila Liaugminas | 12 February 2013

The man himself is clearly a tired and overly wrought servant who recognizes and admits his failing health and strength. The global coverage of his historic announcement to step down has unleashed an exhausting barrage of analysis, mostly from those who know not of what they speak.

The new orthodoxy of “knowledge professionals”

Sheila Liaugminas | 04 October 2010

The Religion Newswriters Association held their annual meeting recently. Their keynote speaker challenged them: be honest.

Call it scandalous

Sheila Liaugminas | 02 April 2010

It would re-set the roiling controversy surrounding the Church considerably if those who have been attacking its handling of the abuse crisis would admit they have strong anti-Church sentiments to begin with, and then get on with a passionate debate about it all.

To set the record straight in Milwaukee

Sheila Liaugminas | 01 April 2010

This is a stop-the-presses story. The unrelenting attacks on Pope Benedict XVI have a lot to do with a lot of cases and allegations but one of the central flashpoints is the now notorious Milwaukee scandal. Because the New York Times has been driving this story without availing themselves of the facts behind it, the priest who was the presiding judge over the canonical criminal case of Fr. Lawrence Murphy has spoken out to correct the record.

Church attacks and the facts

Sheila Liaugminas | 30 March 2010

The media mantra over the weekend, and they increasingly hyperventilated as the tone ramped up, was ‘What did the Pope know and when did he know it?’ Headlines by Sunday on the 24/7 news cycles were something having to do with ‘Calls for the Pope to resign! Yes, Benedict is beleaguered, as is the Church, but one casualty out of the public eye is truth.

What keeps them hanging on

Sheila Liaugminas | 17 February 2010

Those who dissent from teachings of the Catholic Church periodically take their organized protests public and often vilify Church hierarchy for not changing with the times to accommodate cultural trends. But one unasked question in news reports covering these angry protestors is…..why do they stay?

Hospitals and “Choice”

Sheila Liaugminas | 10 February 2010

They keep moving the goal posts, re-defining life and death and disability and what constitutes care. Look at this full-page article the Chicago Tribune ran today on Catholic hospitals and choice, as they put it. The centerpiece of the story is the bishops’ directives on the care of impaired human beings while they still have life.

Another Obama appointee in trouble

Sheila Liaugminas | 10 February 2010

Let’s see…..there are already calls for the firing or resignation of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, Attorney General Eric Holder, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. Now it’s an advisor on Faith-Based matters. Who blasted the Pope...

Good news in the Times?

Sheila Liaugminas | 25 December 2009

The children of Specialty will deteriorate and die here. The real wonder is that they have survived.

Selective conscience & convenient privacy

Sheila Liaugminas | 13 November 2009

U.S. Rep. Patrick Kennedy said he was “not going to dignify with an answer” Roman Catholic Bishop Thomas J. Tobin’s public comments that Kennedy could not be a good Catholic and still support abortion rights.

He gave the New York Times a chance

Sheila Liaugminas | 30 October 2009

New York Archbishop Timothy Dolan submitted an op-ed piece to the Times, the paper that claims to run ”All the news that’s fit to print”. But the Times didn’t see Archbishop Dolan’s opinion piece as fit to print.

How many Angles

Sheila Liaugminas | 29 October 2009

The media are all over the Roman Catholic-Anglican Church arrangement recently announced by the Vatican, so we should be seeing a lot of interesting reporting and analysis. But oddly, most of it is coming from one direction.

What the Soviets couldn’t control

Sheila Liaugminas | 25 October 2009

Before and after the Russian Tsarist regime control and Communist occupation of Lithuania, the Catholic Church was always a defining center of gravity.