Posts

Personal, not institutional, support for Pope Francis

I agreed to express my support for Pope Francis, but not without misgivings. “It will be personal, not institutional, support,” I warned. Let me explain: my misgivings have nothing to do with him as a person, but with the institutional figure –the absolute papacy– that he continues to represent, with the clerical, masculine model of […]

From the rotating Synod to the statements of Bishop Omella

These are harsh winter days for those who thought there were springtime signs for reform in the catholic ecclesial institution. May they not lose their hope, or their breath! On Saturday, October 28, the synthesis of the first phase of the “Synod on Synodality” of the Catholic Church, the fourth in the 10 years of […]

Awaiting the Spring

Taking stock of Pope Francis’ 10 years Eight months following his election in November 2013, Pope Francis published the first of his major documents, which I believe is the best of all the texts written or signed by him: the Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium. It was like a programmatic proclamation. Like a spring proclamation. It […]

Bernard Besret: the utopia of Boquen

In the hot afternoons of the first week of last August, in the shade of a lime tree in Champigny-sur-Veude, a peaceful French village surrounded by wide sunflower and corn fields, I read with both enthusiasm and uneasiness Béatrice Lebel-Goascoz’s doctoral dissertation Boquen entre utopie et révolution1965-1976 (Presses Universitaires de Rennes, 2015). It is a […]

Reflections on the diocese and the Church after Munilla

Bishop José Ignacio Munilla presided over the diocese of Donostia-San Sebastián from 2010 to 2022. The following is a response to the questionnaire proposed by the editor of RELIGIÓN DIGITAL, but is intended more as an in-depth reflection on the situation of the Catholic Church in general: 1) What has Monsignor Munilla left behind? After […]

Ángel Mari Unzueta, travelling companion

In the tribute that his family and friends paid to him in Urkiola,  one year after his unexpected death:   I greet you, Ángel Mari, in this place that you loved so much, Urkiola, crossroads of paths. You also had to live at the crossroads of two eras and two Churches, and you opted without […]

Pope Francis and the [Spanish] 15M Movement

Because of the 10th anniversary of the 15M that started the movement of the outraged, today loaded with more reasons than 10 years ago, I have been asked to answer two questions: 1) Can Pope Francis be considered as one of the outraged?; 2) Does Francis’s synodality correspond to the time of the public squares […]

The Cock Crows

I am filled with astonishment and sorrow after reading the essay Oilarra kukuruka [The Cock Crows] (Erein 2020), which has just been published by Xipri Arbelbide, a Basque priest and friend from Heleta (Lower Navarre). It revolves around the death throes of the Catholic Church in our country, and I am astonished that the author […]