A sub-category of News.
Probably my earliest recollection of Donald Trump was his cameo in Home Alone 2. Years later, I recall seeing fragments of the TV series The Apprentice. Unlike many others at the time, I found him too abrasive and impertinent. Then came 2016. I watched several of his debates for the GOP leadership. I began to…
A recent reading from the Acts of the Apostles brought back the memory of an image from a book of stories I used to pull from the blue bookshelf in my childhood bedroom. It showed a small village in a valley, hemmed in by a cashmere blanket of green mountains. A handful of shops, a…
Part I – The Roman Calendar in 1954: The Last Year of Wholeness Part II – The Vigil of the Epiphany: the Forgotten Gateway to Christ’s Manifestation Part III – The Chair of St. Peter and the Octave of Christian Unity: Authority, Conversion, and the Eclipse of Continuity Part IV – The Vigils of the…
Some of the erroneous ways of viewing children and familial relationships within the secular world are beginning to seep into the Catholic colloquial understanding, causing a fracturing of what it means to be part of a family and fostering a materialistic understanding of bearing children. Emblematically, a priest was speaking to women about motherhood when…
As the number of adult baptisms grows, many Catholics rejoice in the prospect of what is being called a quiet revival. It is a cause of great hope to see so many young people eager to learn more about the Faith. It is also a cause of great mystery. The bishops have announced themselves confounded…
The marginalization of Latin in the Catholic world is not a recent phenomenon. Despite the fact that the Sacrosanctum Concilium constitution of the Second Vatican Council stated that “the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites” (art. 36, §1), it was practically eliminated. This occurred primarily by abandoning Latin…
Happy Easter. Christ is risen from the dead (indeed, He is risen!) and the Epstein Files have been consigned to the tomb to never rise again. Rest in peace. Was there ever anything to be so concerned about in the end? If anything can be judged by their staying power, the Epstein thing couldn’t have…
We’ve all been to our fair share of banal, cringe, or even disrespectful Novus Ordo Masses. As a priest who celebrates the Novus Ordo, I can see how easy it is in the New Rite to fall into those traps. It is evermore necessary, then, for a priest who celebrates the Novus Ordo to cultivate…
The 2nd Sunday after Easter in the traditional Roman Rite is called Good Shepherd Sunday. The nickname is well deserved. The Gospel presents Christ’s discourse in John 10, the Epistle from 1 Peter gathers into itself Isaiah’s Suffering Servant, and the Roman Station in ancient times was St. Peter’s on the Vatican Hill, at the…
“I am not yet so lost in lexicography,” writes Dr. Johnson on introducing his acclaimed Dictionary of the English Language, “as to forget that words are the daughters of earth, and that things are the sons of heaven.” Leaving aside the obvious misogyny of the comparison—at least by today’s progressive standards—the point Dr. Johnson is…
