Writer
Massimo Faggioli
Massimo Faggioli is professor of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.
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Pro-Trump Catholicism and the political consequences of a theological crisis (La Croix Sep 3, 2020)
The theological trajectory of conservative US Catholicism is one of the proofs that Trump’s America is not just a parenthesis. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Catholic synodality as a response to the crisis of democracy.
The global crisis of democracy is yet one more challenge for a Church fighting for social justice. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. The emergence of synodality and the inadequacy of canon law. Historically the Church has never been regulated exclusively by legal codes, says Massimo Faggioli
Catholic bishops around the world are responding in various ways to the crisis the Church is currently facing. Some have tried to show that the bishops in the United States and Germany are doing so in a similar fashion. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Brexit as a spiritual crisis: remain, leave, and an incarnational Church. The whole debate about leaving or remaining in the Catholic Church amid the sex abuse crisis is a form of ecclesial Brexit
In his novel “A Legacy of Spies” John Le Carré ponders the relationship between England and Europe. Continue reading »
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Adapting to a ‘World Church’. A New Internatio nal Commentary on Vatican II
Vatican II was, according to Karl Rahner, the beginning of the “world church.” Elected bishop of Rome half a century after Vatican II, Francis is the first pope who is not from the Euro-Mediterranean area, and he can therefore be understood as the first pope of Rahner’s “world church”: a truly global, non-Eurocentric church. But Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Diaspora and the globalization of the Catholic Church.
The number of Catholics continues to drop in Germany. More than 216,000 of them decided to “leave the Church” last year alone by ceasing to pay the government-mandated church tax. This is just the latest example of what has become a slow, but steady pattern of defections from the Catholic Church in the Western world. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. The rise of ‘devout schismatics’ in the Catholic Church. {La Croix International”, 16.7.2019)
“If Matteo Salvini becomes prime minister, Italy will have a government led by a Catholic who is devout but schismatic.” So said Sergio Romano, a former Italian ambassador to NATO and the ex-Soviet Union, in a recent opinion piece in the Italian daily Il Corriere della Sera. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Reform or Dismantle? Why We Need to Keep the Institutions that Keep Us.
One of the effects of the sex-abuse crisis is the current moment of institutional iconoclasm—the temptation to get rid of the institutional element of the Catholic Church. The failures of the church’s institutions are now on full display, even more so than after the revelations of the Spotlight investigation. It is hypocritical, however, to interpret Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Massimo Faggioli explores how conflicting memories of Nazi-Fascism on two continents is impacting global Catholicism. The European and American Catholic divide
This year marks the 75th anniversary of D-Day, when the Allied troops invaded Normandy on June 6, 1944. Just two days earlier the Allies had carried out the Liberation of Rome, making the Eternal City the first capital to be freed from Nazi German occupation. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. A Postscript to Dignitatis Humanae. A New Vatican Document on Religious Freedom
It’s been more than fifty years since Vatican II ended—on December 8, 1965—and some of the conciliar documents are now showing their age. One of these is the declaration on religious liberty, Dignitatis humanae, the conciliar document that benefited most from American influence, and above all from the influence of John Courtney Murray, SJ. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. The Catholic Church and nationalism: The shadow of the ‘long 19th century’
Pope Francis’ visit to Bulgaria and North Macedonia may not be as sensational as his trips to the Arabian Peninsula or the United States. But it reveals much about the similarities in the life stories of Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Angelo Giuseppe Roncalli. The nine years Roncalli spent as the Vatican’s representative in Bulgaria (1925-34) Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Benedict’s Untimely Meditation. How His Essay on Sex Abuse is Being Weaponized
On the evening of April 10, six weeks after the conclusion of the Vatican’s summit on the sex-abuse crisis, the “pope emeritus,” Benedict XVI, made known his thoughts on the genesis of that crisis in a five-thousand-plus-word essay sent to a periodical for Bavarian priests, quickly translated into English, and then diffused online by Catholic Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. An offer we must refuse in the Catholic Church ,big money
The treaty of Feb. 11, 1929 was a diplomatic triumph for both Benito Mussolini and Pope Pius XI. The fascist regime was assured the political support of Italian Catholics and the Holy See received minimal, but essential territorial sovereignty. This would give the papacy necessary freedom to govern the universal Catholic Church, following the Holy Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. A Church within the Church. Behind the new integralism is the old intransigentism. (La Croix International, 9.1 2019)
“They build a Church within the Church … while making of their views a dogma. I am not defending myself against them, but against what I would call their schismatic spirit.” John Henry Newman on integralism. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Why I cannot even think about leaving the Catholic Church (La Croix International).
We do not know what kind of Church there will be after this abuse crisis, but we must assume that it will probably get worse before it gets better. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Pope Francis’s struggle
The most visible critique of the just concluded Synod of Bishops’ assembly on young people has focused on sections in the final document that call for a strengthening of synodality at all levels of the Church. It is absolutely surprising how very little so many bishops know about synodality, a method Pope Francis has sought to develop throughout Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. The Catholic Church’s Biggest Crisis Since the Reformation.
Why a New Wave of Sexual Abuse Revelations Has Deepened Preexisting Divisions. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Flirting with Church schism.
The right-wing effort to delegitimize Pope Francis is continuing. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. ‘La Civiltà Cattolica’ rails against prosperity Gospel and its support for Trump.
The article is not shy about making the link between the prosperity gospel and the crisis of globalization — political, social and economic. Continue reading »
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MASSIMO FAGGIOLI. Are US Catholics too American to stand up to Trump?
It also reveals a much more complex issue – the deep-seated fear of the state within American Catholicism and of the gap between US Catholicism and the global Catholic Church’s view on the state and of political authority. This creates a complicated situation for the Catholic Church in the United States and its role to be Continue reading »
