A sub-category of News.
Clichés are sometimes unavoidable (hindsight is 20/20), but then so is history—it provides clarity when obfuscation is the order of the day. It seems fitting to say that in some respects we have been here before. Earlier, it was with one who some say was a pioneer and in some respects a forerunner to 45—Patrick…
Ordinarily, do untrained and unprepared people “rise to the occasion” when faced with enormous challenges? In great fiction, they often do. In real life? Well, that’s another story. People who work in fields where error can result in death (e.g., soldiers, law enforcement, firemen, pilots, emergency doctors) will all tell you that “people don’t rise…
I get little solace from the idea that some future pope will come along and undo the Francis papacy. Not that I don’t think it could happen. But what is the point of a religion that changes from time to time depending on who is pope? What got me to this point is the scandal…
Often in the Gospels, when Christ associates Himself with the Father in such a way that He suggests that He, too, is divine, some scribe or Pharisee, that is, an expert on the Law and Prophets, get up in His face and interrogates Him. This is what happens in the Gospel reading from Luke 10:23-37…
There was a time when the opening lines of Francis Thompson’s poem “The Hound of Heaven” would have been widely known. Today, as I discovered on a recent trip to England to film a documentary on Thompson, the poem and the poet are almost entirely forgotten. Nowhere was this crass disregard for one of England’s…
I don’t get angry for fun. I wouldn’t say I get angry easily. When it comes to Pope Francis, I don’t delve deeply into Church politics. I know enough to know it’s consistently bad; I only try to have a general idea of the biggest doings. I tend to wonder how the hierarchy can be…
By now you are probably tired of hearing about the blasphemy and mockery of Our Lord that took place at the Olympic opening ceremonies. I know I am. It was an egregious display and set the tone for the whole event, an event that I have avoided in its entirety but for a clip here…
Above: Roman Catholic church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in Kursk (Russia). Read part 1 Read part 2 In this last part of our journey we will see where theory meets reality as we apply the schemes and drafts of the Fathers to the current crisis in all of its brightest manifestations. Let…
Above: Rev. Marián Potáš, OSBM, Easter Greek Catholic blessing of Paska in Litmanová, Stará Ľubovňa district, Slovakia. Read Part 1 Although one might take the passage as cited from some present-day traditionalist bestseller, it was actually written in the 4th century by an Eastern Catholic bishop. His name was Basil the Great of Caesarea and…
We have a particularly rich offering of absurdities in this edition of “This Just In.” At the opening of the Olympics, many were worried about the sewage level in the Seine River endangering Olympic aquatic contestants. How could anyone swim in that muck? Little did they know that the worst sewage would be floating on…
