A sub-category of News.
I remain amazed and puzzled by how the publication of Fiducia Supplicans is affecting the Church—and by how the responses to it still seem to be under-perceived, downplayed, or ignored. Negative reactions to the document, and against specific contents of the document, have been strong, including those from entire bishops’ conferences and large numbers of…
It is calamitous how Catholic institutions have buried their lamps beneath bushel baskets in these diverse, intolerantly tolerant days of fear and trembling, concealing the true Faith as if it were a secret. Catholic schools in particular—including diocesan schools, sad to say—have become all but synonymous with the CINO (“Catholic In Name Only”) moniker. And…
“Catholic Traditionalism” is a reaction to the crisis of the Catholic Church. How can anyone fail to understand this reaction, when almost every day we are subjected to evidence that tells us about the serious situation in which the Catholic Church finds herself? Yet for traditionalists, it is important that this movement avoids its own…
Since early October, the world has anxiously watched the terrible events unfolding in the Levant, where the State of Israel’s military efforts in the Gaza Strip are aimed at defeating Hamas, a terrorist political organization which for decades has denied Israel’s right to exist. Apart from the rancorous debates regarding the continuation of the deadly…
September 11, 1998, was an ordinary night. I stood among a gathering of baseball beat writers and radio and television reporters awaiting entrance into the Tampa Bay Devil Rays Major League Baseball clubhouse. In a minute or two, we would pile into a room full of players, get quotes, and speak briefly with Manager Larry…
We are pleased to announce the 2nd edition of Matthew Plese’s work just released: The Definitive Guide to Catholic Fasting & Abstinence. This book forms the basis for our lay sodality, The Fellowship of St. Nicholas, founded by Pese with OnePeterFive and Sensus Fidelium. Read about and join the sodality here. You can learn more and hear…
Among my earliest memories of St. Augustine—prompting an immediate deep dive into his Confessions, one of the greatest memoirs ever written—was a tantalizing passage from Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to Christianity, recounting the decisive moment in Augustine’s life when, having discovered that “the famous philosopher Marius Victorinus had become a Christian,” his whole world suddenly fell……
After the untimely revelation of Cardinal Fernández’s salacious book, Mystical Passion: Spirituality and Sensuality, some prominent progressive Catholics rushed to defend the beleaguered prelate. The cardinal, who was appointed head of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith last September, has been a source of embarrassment and controversy for the Church, especially because of…
Our coming Sunday is already Septuagesima. Let’s do the technical stuff first. Septuagesima slides around from year to year because Easter slides around because the Moon is a bit of a calendrical coquette, or as Juliet calls her, “inconstant”. Easter is early this year, 31 March. We celebrate Easter in the Western Churches on the…
There is a painting in London’s National Portrait Gallery by Sir James Gunn of three writers who were very well-known in their own day. Entitled A Conversation Piece, it shows two writers seated at a table, one with pen in hand, while the third stands behind them. The seated writers are G.K. Chesterton and Hilaire…
