A sub-category of News.
I’m not sure I’ve ever known anyone quite like Michael D’Souza. We met almost a decade ago at a Redemptorist parish in downtown Bangkok, where I had just moved with my young family. Michael, even among the parish’s large Pakistani asylum-seeker community, stood out. After weekday Masses, when most attendees had departed, he would approach…
I remember the evening my childhood died. It was cold and just before Christmas; the lights were strung up on storefronts. Far across the parking lot, I could hear the ding-dings from a Salvation Army bell in front of the K-Mart. A pay phone rang, and I reached for the receiver. Thereafter, the lights all…
Just before the First Vatican Council, a critic warned what would happen if the council defined papal infallibility as its Ultramontane supporters wished. “Ultramontanism, he wrote, “is essentially Papalism,” and for its adherents the power of the Pope over the Church… neither knows nor tolerates any limits. He is to be sole and absolute master,…
News broke this morning that the stalwart man of God, Bishop Strickland of Tyler Texas was removed from his diocese. The official announcement was terse: The Holy Father has removed Bishop Joseph E. Strickland from the pastoral care of the diocese of Tyler, United States of America, and has appointed Bishop Joe Vásquez of Austin…
Social media exploded last week when, on “Reformation Day,” October 31 (did you know?), some Protestant tourists posted a cheeky photo of themselves wearing Martin Luther t-shirts in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Catholics came out in force on X-formerly-Twitter with (mostly) civil rebukes. Then the Protestant side kicked it up a notch with a…
Of the seven letters of Ignatius written in the last weeks of his life, the shortest on record is the one sent to the Christians living in Tralles, a town less than twenty miles from Magnesia. The bishop of Tralles has come to Smyrna to greet the would-be martyr. But for all its brevity, there…
As we approach the end of the liturgical year, an odd thing happens in the Church’s traditional calendar for the Vetus Ordo. The Sundays left over after Epiphany are finally dusted off, “resumed”, and prayed until the liturgical year is concluded. This is because of the vagaries of the Moon and shifting date of Easter and, therefore,…
Editor’s note: what follows is the official English text from His Eminence. Original address delivered in Italian here: Presentation of “Credo: Compendium of the Catholic Faith” Robert Cardinal Sarah, Prefect emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments Rome, Thursday, 26 October 2023 Firstly, I would like to thank…
Carla told her grandmother she had found a place to stay for the summer while she interned at Ernst and Young in Northern Virginia. Her grandmother asked who she was staying with, pointing out the host family was either “very generous or very creepy.” Carla said, “It’s the Ruse family.” Carla’s grandmother said, “Is it…
While observing the expanding war, I’ve been thinking about the detonation of bombs into childhoods. In the deep interior of Mexico last week, at Villa de los Niños in Guadalajara, I walked paths with and fell into new friendships with three American combat veterans. We ate meals together, prayed shoulder-to-shoulder, told jokes, and attended Mass…
