A sub-category of News.
Editor’s note: to celebrate today’s feast, we publish an excerpt from “On Spiritual Reading” by the saint. To a spiritual life the reading of holy books is perhaps not less useful than mental prayer. St. Bernard says reading instructs us at once in prayer, and in the practice of virtue. Hence he concluded that spiritual…
I demur. The Opening Ceremonies of the Paris Olympics last Friday would have been an insult to Caligula. He merely stood for perversity, sadism, and debauchery, while the opening ceremonies at Paris celebrated much, much more. They boldly trumpeted the end of Christianity, in particular, and of Western Civilization, in general. With their Last Supper…
There is an artistic photograph of Thomas Jolly hanging on a cross, wearing clown makeup. The image is unmistakably Christ on the Cross. Recall that Thomas Jolly is the director/choreographer who also designed the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Paris, where he was accused of blasphemously recreating the institution of the Eucharist, Da Vinci’s Last Supper….
The prophet and king David wrote these lines in condemnation of idolatry and the folly of thinking man-made things contain life or even the potential for life. Idolatry is the Satan-inspired mockery of Truth, especially as that Truth is manifested in the Incarnation. St. John the Evangelist is the teacher par excellence of the natural…
When the bishops and their theological advisers met in Rome for the Second Vatican Council, journalists divided the participants into two main groups: Progressives and Conservatives. It was a gross exaggeration because within each group there were many different schools of thought. But, for the sake of the point that I want to make, let…
The Apostle Paul calls us to believe with one’s heart and to confess what one believes (Romans 10:9). This is a twofold Christian imperative—the creedal and confessional imperative—that is at the root of creeds and confessions of faith. Faith involves both the fides qua creditur (“the faith with which one believes”) and the fides quae…
There is good news for the pro-life movement to report from Nebraska: with little lead time and even less money, an alliance of pro-lifers succeeded in gathering enough signatures from enough different counties to put a pro-life amendment to the State Constitution on the November ballot here. If the “Protect Women and Children Constitutional Amendment”…
Above: the Eikon Basilike, a purported spiritual autobiography attributed to Charles I, published days after his execution. Oxford, England has long proudly held the titles “Mother of Lost Causes” and “City of Dreaming Spires.” Certainly the latter has bound up this lovely place with the history of English Catholicism – so often defeated, yet only…
Above: the Marquis Luigi Coda Nunziante di San Ferdinando with Raymond Cardinal Burke at a March for Life in Rome. Photo credit. Many years ago I served as choir director for the traditional Mass celebrated in the Roman church of Jesus and Mary. That Mass was very popular with some of the protagonists of Roman…
One good thing about teaching sixth grade is that there is a known standard of behavior and I can hold my students accountable. If only that were true for our so-called leaders. Three recent examples: on May 17, during a House Committee hearing concerning Attorney General Merrick Garland, GOP Rep. Marjorie Greene made a comment…
