pope john paul ii | Reflections on Morality, Philosophy, and History

Pope Leo XIV, Dilexi Te, On Love for the Poor. Is Leo a Woke Pope?

04/01/2026 Bruce Strom 0

Pope Leo XIV teaches us: “Love for the Lord, then, is one with love for the poor” ““This is not a matter of mere human kindness but a revelation: contact with those who are lowly and powerless is a fundamental way of encountering the Lord of history. In the poor, he continues to speak to us.” “Care for the poor was also a great concern of St Francis of Assisi: in the person of a leper, Christ himself embraced Francis and changed his life.”
Pop Leo XIV teaches us: “By embracing poverty, he wanted to imitate Christ, who was poor, naked, and crucified. In his Rule, he asks that “the brothers should not appropriate anything, neither house, nor place, nor anything else. And as pilgrims and strangers in this world, serving the Lord in poverty and humility, they should go about begging with confidence, and should not be ashamed, because the Lord made himself poor for us in this world.” […]

Pope Leo XIII: Catholic Social Justice and Rerum Novarum, Confronting the Modern World

07/27/2025 Bruce Strom 2

O’Malley writes: “Rerum Novarum is a long encyclical. It reaffirms previous papal condemnations of socialism and communism. But its tone throughout is serene, and free from rant.” “While it proclaimed private property as a natural right, it insisted it had its limits. If private property was a right, so was the right of the worker to a just wage and to humane working conditions. Most remarkably, the encyclical endorsed the right of workers to organize in order to obtain and secure their rights.”
Pope Leo XXIII was labeled the Social Pope and the Pope of Workers since he endorsed the necessity of paying workers a living wage that enables the worker to feed, clothe, and house his family with dignity. Rerum Novarum encouraged the formulation of social justice doctrine, leading to the Catholic concept of the preferential option for the poor. Subsequent popes endorsed the theology of this encyclical: Pope Pius XI issued the encyclical Quadragesimo Anno, Pope Pius VI issued Octagesima Adveniens, and Pope John Paul II issued Centesimus Annus on the fortieth, eightieth, and hundredth anniversary of Rerum Novarum. In addition, Pope John XXIII issued Mater Et Magistra on social justice. […]

Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope, Successor to Pope Francis and Social Justice of Pop Leo XIII

Pope Leo XIV, First American Pope, Successor to Pope Francis and Social Justice of Pope Leo XIII

05/13/2025 Bruce Strom 7

Pope Leo XIV notes: “What is striking about these two attitudes is their relevance today. They embody notions that we could easily find on the lips of many men and women in our own time, even if, while essentially identical, they are expressed in different language.”
“Even today, there are many settings in which the Christian faith is considered absurd, meant for the weak and unintelligent. Settings where other securities are preferred, like technology, money, success, power, or pleasure.” […]

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity: Reflections on Intimacy, Romance, Marriage, and Divorce

CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity: Intimacy, Romance, Marriage, and Divorce

05/31/2024 Bruce Strom 2

CS Lewis continues: “Being in love is a good thing, but it is not the best thing.” “You cannot make it the basis of a whole life. It is a noble feeling, but it is still a feeling.” But CS Lewis warns us that the initial excitement will not last, that “love in the second sense is not merely a feeling, but is a deep unity, maintained by the will and deliberately strengthened by habit, reinforced in Christian marriages by the grace which both partners ask, and receive, from God.” […]

Ratzinger Report, by Future Pope Benedict XVI, Preparing for Catholic Catechism

01/13/2023 Bruce Strom 3

Cardinal Ratzinger teaches us: “Every council that bears fruit must be followed by a wave of holiness. Thus it was after Trent, and it achieved its aim of real reform for this reason. Salvation for the Church comes from within her,” not solely “from the decrees of the hierarchy. Whether Vatican II and its results will be considered as a luminous period of Church history will depend upon all the Catholics who are called to give it life. As Pope John Paul II said in his commemoration of Charles Borromeo in Milan, ‘the Church of today does not need any new reformers, the Church needs new saints.’” […]

How Did the Experiences of World War II Influence the Second Vatican Council?

11/30/2022 Bruce Strom 1

Vatican II marks a shift in the Church’s attitude towards the modern secular world. Gone are the anathemas of the Council of Trent and many other councils that condemn those who may disagree with the teachings of the church, instead Vatican II seeks dialogue with the modern world in with a pastoral rather than a condemning attitude. The Vatican II decree on religious freedom announced that democracy and freedom of religion and conscience were the friends of the church, that a totalitarian form of government could never be a trustworthy friend of the Catholic or Christian Church. […]

Pope Francis Encyclical, Fratelli Tutti, On Fraternity and Social Friendship

08/26/2022 Bruce Strom 3

One detail about the passers-by does stand out: they were religious, devoted to the worship of God: a priest and a Levite. This detail should not be overlooked. It shows that belief in God and the worship of God are not enough to ensure that we are actually living in a way pleasing to God. […]

Book Reviews, Reform Councils of Trent and Vatican II, and Vatican I

03/21/2022 Bruce Strom 7

IMHO, you cannot truly understand the modern Catholic Church without reading William O’Malley’s histories of Trent and Vatican II. O’Malley argues that Vatican II restated the theology of Trent, countering the notion that Trent was a reactionary rather than a reforming council. This polemic view of Trent was influenced by the fact that the Vatican had closed the archives of the Trent Council until early in the twentieth century. […]

Catholic Catechism, Do Not Covet, CCC 2514-2516

04/25/2021 Bruce Strom 2

Surprisingly, the Catholic Catechism discusses concupiscence not when reflecting on the commandment prohibiting adultery but on the commandment forbidding coveting your neighbor’s wife. Concupiscence is not itself a sin, and although it is commonly thought of as a sexual sin, it can “refer to any intense form of human desire.” “Concupiscence stems from the disobedience of the first sin. It unsettles man’s moral faculties and, without being in itself an offense, inclines man to commit sins.” The Catholic Catechism footnotes the decrees of the Council of Trent, which teaches that “concupiscence or the tinder of sin remains in the baptized. Since it is left for us to wrestle with, it cannot harm those who do not consent but manfully resist it by the grace of Jesus Christ.” This decree of Trent then confirms that concupiscence is not sin itself, but inclines us to sin. […]

Can Good Catholics Read Hans Kung? Should Devout Catholics Read Hans Kung?

03/13/2021 Bruce Strom 1

Can Good Catholics Read Hans Kung? Should Devout Catholics Read Hans Kung? We should all read books on theology, philosophy, and psychology with discernment, testing them first against Scripture then Church teaching, and you should definitely read the books by Hans Kung with discernment. Most importantly, by learning more about why the Catholic Church was goaded into announcing this discipline against Hans Kung, we can learn anyone who wishes to read and discuss these timeless topics can do so with humility, without succumbing to pride. […]

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