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Author
Charles J. Chaput
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Archbishop of Philadelphia

Articles By Charles J. Chaput

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Human Dignity and Human Trafficking

“Today there are millions of women and children around the world enslaved without a voice in situations of forced labor and sexual exploitation from which they cannot free themselves. This horrific phenomenon is the third largest crime in the world, behind only the illicit sale of drugs and arms.”

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The Birthday of the Church and the Path We Chose

Anything without heart, anything without love — and I mean politics, music, law, art, even religion —anything without love, no matter how brilliant, is finally inadequate and weak. At the end of the day, the human soul yearns to be loved, and to love in return.  And it won’t settle for anything less. 

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Charles Borromeo and the Work of New Beginnings

Exactly 18 months ago this week, the Philadelphia Catholic family became my family, and the city became my home.  I said at the time that the challenges we face as a Church wouldn’t be easy, and they haven’t been. Many of our pastoral, legal and financial problems still remain.  So do our very serious obligations to victims of past abuse.  But it’s also true that a great deal of good has been accomplished in a short time.  We need to thank God for that, and we need to take pride in the fidelity of our clergy and our people under very trying circumstances. 

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Justice, Prudence, and Immigration Reform

The Catholic commitment to the dignity of the immigrant comes from exactly the same roots as our commitment to the dignity of the unborn child.  Any Catholic who truly understands his or her faith knows that the right to life precedes and creates the foundation for every other human right.  There’s no getting around the priority of that fundamental right to life. But being “prolife” also means that we need to make laws and social policies that will care for those people already born that no one else will defend.

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Preparing for the Journey of Lent 2013

More than 70 years ago the great French Catholic writer Georges Bernanos published a little essay called “Sermon of an Agnostic on the Feast of St. Théresè.”  Bernanos deeply loved the Church, but he could also be brutally candid when it came to himself and his fellow believers.  Above all, he had a piercing sense of irony about the comfortable, the self-satisfied and the lukewarm who postured themselves as Catholic – whether they were laypeople or clergy.

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Making Sense of Another Ambiguous 'Compromise'

To live well is nothing other than to love God with all one’s heart, with all one’s soul and with all one’s efforts; from this it comes about that love is kept whole and uncorrupted (through temperance).  No misfortune can disturb it (and this is fortitude).  It obeys only [God] (and this is justice), and is careful in discerning things, so as not to be surprised by deceit or trickery (and this is prudence).

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Looking Back and Looking Ahead

On the Catholic calendar, Christmas continues through the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord, observed this year on Sunday, January 13.  In effect, we’re only halfway through the real Christmas season, and if we take the time to pray over the Infancy Narratives in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, we’ll find plenty of reasons to keep the joy of Christmas alive in our hearts.

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Christmas and the Reason for Our Joy

“And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying, ‘Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men with whom he is pleased’” (Lk 2:12-14).  According to the evangelist, the angel “said” this.  But Christianity has always understood that the speech of angels is actually a song, in which all the glory of the great joy they proclaim becomes tangibly present.  And so, from that moment, the angels’ song of praise has never gone silent.  It continues down the centuries in constantly new forms, and it resounds ever anew at the celebration of Jesus’ birth.