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A Distinction Without a Difference or a Distinction to Die For? Wrestling With the Subtleties of John 21:16 – Peter, Do You Love Me? By: Msgr. Charles PopeLast week, as we wrapped up the Easter season, we read the beautiful dialogue between Jesus and Peter: “Peter, do you love me?” Analyzing this beautiful text is one of the great indoor sports of New Testament Biblical Scholarship: how to interpret the subtleties in that dialogue between Jesus and Peter.And thus Jesus asks, “Peter do you love me?” And Peter responds, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” This exchange occurs three times. But...

The twentieth century was the start of the age of high technology. The technological advances of our age have eclipsed all previous generations. It was the nineteenth century that evoked an unprecedented spirit of human optimism. The Enlightenment concluded that man no longer needed the God-hypothesis to explain his origins and purpose. An optimistic humanism was born that promised a coming utopia. Education, science, and technology would produce the acme of evolutionary development. Peace would prevail and poverty, disease, crime, and war would be banished by the modern techniques of government, economics, and education. World War I temporarily burst the...