NCR Staff

Your thoughts: Readers continue the conversation about an article by James Carroll for The Atlantic calling for the priesthood to be abolished. 

Pope's quotes: "We should wholeheartedly give priority to human beings in their actual circumstances and pursue every attempt to prevent differences from giving rise to violence that can cause ruinous calamity for people and for society."

Your thoughts: NCR readers are welcome to join the conversation and send us a letter to the editor. Here is a sampling of letters received in the month of May 2019. 

Pope's quotes: "But you might say to me, 'But tell me, Father, those who have done the worst things in life, do they have the chance of being forgiven?' Yes! No one is excluded from God's forgiveness."

Your thoughts: The U.S. bishops' conference held their annual spring assembly June 11-14 where they took further steps into accountability and transparency in dealing with clergy sexual abuse.

NCR received the following email from Tom Halden, director of the office of communications for the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, regarding the story posted June 12, an interview with Catholic entrepreneur Tim Busch.

Pope's quotes: "We are all called, good and bad. The Church is not only for the good, or for those who seem good or believe themselves good. The Church is for everyone, and even preferably for the wicked, because the Church is mercy."

Your thoughts: Recently, James Carroll wrote an article for The Atlantic calling for the priesthood to be abolished. NCR published three different responses to Carroll's call.

Pope's quotes: "Whoever proclaims the hope of Jesus carries joy and sees a great distance; such persons have the horizon open before them; there is no wall closing them in; they see a great distance because they know how to see beyond evil and beyond their problems."

Your thoughts: NCR readers are welcome to join the conversation and send us a letter to the editor. Below is a sampling of letters received in the month of April 2019.

Pope's quotes: "Respecting human dignity is important in any profession … because even behind the simple account of an event there are sentiments, emotions, and ultimately, people's lives."

Your thoughts: Letters to the editor in reaction to NCR's recent editorial on abortion, in which we wrote about the extreme attitudes of state legislatures in New York and Alabama and how there is a reasonable compromise.

Pope's quotes: "Loving the truth means not only affirming it, but rather living it, bearing witness to it in your work. … The issue is not that of being or not being a believer. The issue here is being or not being honest with yourself and with others."

Your thoughts: Some big news out of the Vatican on new laws mandating reporting of abuse or its cover-up, and Pope Francis handing over a report from the commission on women deacons.

Pope's quotes: "The journalist has a role of great importance, and at the same time a great responsibility. In a certain sense you write the 'first draft of history.' Times change, and the way of being a journalist changes too."

Your thoughts: NCR readers respond to our occasional series on seminary formation that focuses on who is teaching seminarians and how they are formed.

Your thoughts: Two recent NCR editorials shared a common thread of division within the Catholic Church. "Bannon's emerging anti-Francis movement threatens church unity" and "One pope is quite enough" sparked a fury of conversation on social media and in NCR's letter to the editor inbox. 

Pope's quotes: "Merciful love is the only path to follow. How much we all need to be a little more merciful! Do not gossip, do not judge, do not pick at others with envy and jealousy."

Pope's quotes: "The Church cannot be other than the sacrament of God's mercy in the world, in every time and towards all humanity."

Your thoughts: More reader responses to Pope Benedict XVI's letter that blamed the continuing Catholic clergy abuse crisis on the sexual revolution, developments in theology following the Second Vatican Council, and modern society's aversion to speaking about God.