149. Do Atheists Go to Heaven? Pope Francis Says Yes
May 1st, 2018 Recent weeks have seen Pope Francis attracting media attention for statements that sound controversial even among Roman Catholic circles. Recently he was quoted using ambiguous language –...
View Article150. Pope Francis’ Re-Interpretation and Actualization Of Gnosticism and...
June 1st, 2018 Pope Francis is hardly known for his interest in historical theology. Unlike his predecessor, Benedict XVI, Francis’ speeches and writings usually contain no reference to patristic,...
View Article151. Eucharistic Hospitality? Between a Catholic “Yes” and a Roman “No”
July 1st, 2018 “Can a non-Catholic be given the Eucharist in the Catholic Church?” When asked this question by a Lutheran woman married to a Catholic man during his 2015 visit to a Lutheran Church in...
View Article152. “Either Ecumenical or Proselytizer”? No, There is a Better Option
August 1st, 2018 Proselytism has become a bad word. Like fundamentalism or exclusivism, in today’s religious language, only the negative overtones of the term are retained and are used to convey a...
View Article153. A Few Remarks on the Evangelical Fascination with the “Sacramental...
September 1st, 2018 In some evangelical circles, “sacramental theology” attracts a growing attention and, in a few cases, makes converts to Roman Catholicism. For many of those coming out of a...
View Article154. The Loss of Credibility of the Roman Catholic Church and the Theological...
October 1st, 2018 The public image of the Roman Catholic Church emerging out of the sexual abuse scandals is that of a disrupted institution going through a season of internal turmoil. Having several...
View Article155. Roman but Not Catholic: A Book Review
November 1st, 2018 What remains at stake with the Roman Catholic Church 500 years after the Protestant Reformation? This question is of capital importance given the general ecumenical climate, which...
View Article156. She is My Mamá – Pope Francis and Mary
December 1st, 2018 “Ella Es Mi Mamá” (She Is My Mum) is the title of a 2014 book written in Spanish that contains a long interview with Pope Francis by the Brazilian priest Alexander Awi Mello. During...
View Article157. What is at Stake with Roman Catholic Mariology?
January 1st, 2019 This is going to be a more personal Vatican File, based on some observations gathered in the last twelve months. After writing a book on Mary, I knew that I was going to present it on...
View Article158. The Annus Horribilis (Terrible Year) of the Roman Catholic Church
February 1st, 2019 Stable. Traditional. Consistent. For many this has been the image of the Roman Catholic Church. But that was ages ago. The present-day situation appears to be quite different:...
View Article159. “Confusion” and “Failure”: Other Roman Catholic Blows Against Pope Francis
March 1st, 2019 The turmoil in the Roman Catholic Church has reached a further disruption point. At the beginning of February, two independent but influential texts circulated widely that expressed...
View Article160. Is the Nicene Faith the Basis for Ecumenism?
April 1st, 2019 This article is adapted from La fede nicena è la base teologica dell’ecumenismo?, “Studi di teologia” 61 (2019) pp. 65-69. The Council of Nicaea (325 AD) is often studied by church...
View Article161. Are there two Popes of the Roman Catholic Church?
April 19th, 2019 Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI, Pope Emeritus) has spoken, and his voice is loud in the confusion that reigns in the Roman Catholic Church. His 5,000 word text, which is entitled “The...
View Article162. Deciphering Vatican II: A New Book Especially Helpful for Evangelicals
May 1st, 2019 Reading Vatican II has often been a daunting experience for evangelicals. While navigating Vatican II, evangelicals are puzzled to find the restatement of traditional Roman Catholic...
View Article163. Five Principles for Interpreting the Church Fathers
June 1st, 2019 This article is an excerpt from my Letture patristiche (II-III secolo), “Studi di teologia” N. 54 (2015), pp. 139-141. Recent decades have seen Evangelical theology express a renewed...
View Article164. From the Mary of the Bible to the Mary of Manifold Devotions
This review of Stephen J. Shoemaker, Mary in Early Christian Faith and Devotion (New Haven, CT; London, UK: Yale University Press, 2016) pp. 289, was published in “Credo Magazine”, Volume 9, Issue 2...
View Article166. Pope Francis Fears for the Planet, But Where Is the Gospel?
Europe, sovereignism (the “us first” type of politics), migrants, glaciers, the Amazon … these are the topics covered in a recent interview given by Pope Francis to the Italian daily newspaper La...
View Article168. Contested Catholicity: In What Sense Is the Church Catholic?
October 1st, 2019 This is a summary of a paper given at the Giornate teologiche (Padova, Italy, 6-7 Sept 2019), the annual theological conference of the Istituto di Formazione Evangelica e...
View Article169.“Baptized and Sent”: Is This the Biblical Mission?
November 1st, 2019 “Baptized and Sent: The Church of Christ on Mission in the World”. This is the theme chosen by Pope Francis for the Missionary Month that he called for this past June. “For the month...
View Article170. Totus Christus (The Whole Christ) or Solus Christus (Christ Alone)? On...
Solus Christus (Christ Alone) versus Totus Christus (the Whole Christ). If one wants to capture the difference between the evangelical faith and Roman Catholicism, here it is. On the one hand, the...
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