Catholic witness and religious liberty in the light of 2013

Salt and Light Dinner, April 25, 2013, Greensburg, Pa.
 
One of the great scholars of the last century was the Jesuit Henri de Lubac.  As a theologian at Vatican II, de Lubac helped to shape some of the council’s most important work.  It’s less well known that he spent much of World War II hiding from [...]

Testimony to the United States Commission on Civil Rights

(The following originally appeared on ThePublicDiscourse.com, website of the Witherspoon Institute)
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M.Cap.
Archbishop of Philadelphia
March 22, 2013
 
Ladies and gentlemen:
Thank you for this opportunity to offer comments to the Commission. My remarks today are purely my own.  But they’re shaped by 25 years as a Catholic bishop and the social and religious ministries that such [...]

Mass honoring St. Kateri Tekakwitha and St. Marianne Cope, Washington, D.C.

Jan. 26, 2013
+ Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
 
I am Archbishop Charles Chaput ofPhiladelphia.  I’m also a Native American.  When I was asked to preach today, I wondered if some of you would worry that I would give favored attention to our first Native American saint, Kateri Tekakwitha, and neglect St. Marianne Cope.  But I am [...]

Mass for Philadelphians at the March for Life, Washington, D.C.

Jan. 25, 2013
+ Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
 
This Mass today, like every Mass, is the celebration of the Eucharist.  “Eucharist” comes from the Greek word eukharistia.  It means “thanksgiving.”  The trouble is, if we look unsentimentally at the direction of our nation, some of us may not feel very thankful.
We live in a time when [...]

Young adults and ‘secrets of the heart’

In an address to Catholic Campus ministers this week in Florida, Archbishop Charles Chaput described the daunting cultural landscape facing today’s young adults, which makes campus ministers’ task of sharing the faith a complicated one.

Too often the Church has held on to the same institutional patterns of organization, the same methods of preaching and teaching that worked in a religion-friendly past, but can’t and don’t work today. Young people in search of meaning won’t choose Jesus Christ if they constantly encounter a faith life of worn-out structures in various stages of decline.

Emerging adults are the future of Catholic life in flesh and blood, the key to triggering a chain reaction of conversion and new zeal in the Church. All Catholics need to be and make a fire on the earth that consumes human hearts with God’s love.

Archbishop Chaput sends Christmas card to the faithful

See Archbishop Charles Chaput’s Christmas greeting to everyone, along with a pledge of his prayers.

English martyrs call to today’s bishops in America: ‘Do not be afraid’

In the coming year, Catholic and other Christian leaders face tough choices concerning the HHS contraceptive mandate. They can refuse to comply and decline to pay the consequent fines, or try to pay them; they can divest themselves of institutions that the regulation will impact; they can seek some unexplored compromise or way of [...]

The new communities and the ‘New Evangelization’

Archbishop Charles Chaput gave a talk Nov. 29 in Lima, Peru on the value and role of new religious movements in the Catholic Church.

“In an age of aggressive individualism and the isolation it breeds,” he says, “the new ecclesial movements offer two absolutely priceless gifts: community and purpose.”

Read the full text of his moving talk.

Renewing the Church and her mission in a Year of Faith

Catholic Life Congress, Philadelphia
November 17, 2012
+Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M. Cap.
My comments today will be simple. I want to focus on just three points. The first point is where we are as a Church and as individual Catholics, given the current environment of our country.  The second point is what we need to do about it. [...]

Fighting the good fight for religious freedom

Key people in this administration simply do not seem to believe in “religious freedom” in the sense the American Founders originally intended it – in other words, as a distinct human liberty and a priority human right. If we want to lead others to do the right thing; if we want to turn our country away from duplicity and toward real justice; then we need to do it without anger or fear or despair.

In his letters, St. Thomas More writes, “…you must not abandon the ship in a storm because you cannot control the wind.” The wind is the business of God. Success is the business of God. Our business is to fight the good fight.

Read more of the comments by Philadelphia Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, O.F.M.Cap., as he accepted the annual Meese Award Nov. 16 in Washington, D.C., from the Alliance Defending Freedom, which specializes in legal defense of religious liberty.