A sub-category of News.
“You are welcome!” This “pat” phrase is delightfully warm when uttered with a somewhat lilting cadence, a beautiful broad smile, and direct, sparkling eye contact—as it regularly is in Uganda, the home of a most hospitable and open people. I heard it often on my visit to Uganda. In previous columns, I wrote about the…
In 1755, the papacy undertook to reform the liturgy of the Byzantine Rite for Byzantine Christians in communion with Rome. But when they did so, a critic made a startling accusation against the Vatican officials responsible for such efforts. He noted that “the popes with timely wisdom have had new editions of the missals of…
The American Church is often at the center of ridicule and criticism from those at the top (see Cardinal Pierre’s interview with America magazine). But on the feast of St. Anthony, Cardinal Sarah highly praised the American Church in his lecture titled “The Catholic Church’s Enduring Answer To The Practical Atheism Of Our Age.” Practical…
Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote in his famous essay “Self-Reliance” that a “foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines.” I suspect that the Holy Father would not like the full implications of the remark, but I wonder that he doesn’t realize that some people might see in…
Born to Saints Zechariah and Elizabeth, St. John the Baptist’s birth was miraculous due to his parents’ advanced age. Leading an ascetic lifestyle in the wilderness, St. John wore camel’s hair, ate locusts and wild honey, and preached repentance and the imminent Kingdom of God. His recognition of Jesus as the Messiah and his act…
The 20th century liturgical commentator Pius Parsch thought that the 2nd and 3rd Sundays after Pentecost showed God’s love inviting us (the Parable of the Supper) and His seeking us (Parable of the Lost Sheep). On the 4th Sunday, God revealed in the calling of Peter and the Apostles the instruments of administering His love…
Fifty years ago, on June 22, 1974, Darius Milhaud passed away in Geneva. He often referred to himself as “a Frenchman from Provence and, by religion, a Jew.”[1] Born in 1892 in Aix-en-Provence, southern France, Milhaud received his musical education at the Paris Conservatory and the Schola Cantorum. In 1916, he embarked on a journey…
While Aristotle was hardly the first to stumble upon the fact that all human beings desire to know, he was certainly the first to give it formal expression, which he did in Metaphysics, his important treatise on First Philosophy, written some four centuries before the coming of Christ. He was a very bright fellow. Why…
Fred Simon was born before Vatican II. He still remembers the ornate gothic paintings in the German parish where he attended Mass with his father and grandfather. Then, one day, the entire interior was whitewashed and a new altar was placed in the middle of the sanctuary. It was the beginning of Simon’s exile from…
Captain Alfred Dreyfus served as an artillery officer in the French army at a time when France and Germany were at daggers drawn. A French officer delivered war plans to the Germans. Dreyfus was charged with treason. He was an outsider. He was a Jew. He was tried, convicted, and sentenced to life in prison…
