A sub-category of News.
My reading of papal history has lately convinced me that the papacy permits the contradiction of one of the oldest axioms of philosophy: the parts are sometimes greater than the whole. That is especially true in our age when the greater share of the Fourth Estate has given up all pretense of objectivity. We are…
“I dread fasting—it’s miserable.” “It’s too easy and not even a sacrifice for me.” “Does my condition exempt me or not?” “How much is OK for each meal or snack?” “Well, it’s really just about self-denial, so I’ll just give it my best shot.” Among Catholics, this wave of consternation is about to hit on…
I begin with a few thoughts before picking up Dr. Kwasniewski’s latest book, Bound by Truth: Authority, Obedience, Tradition, and the Common Good. I need to take stock of things before I read, mainly regarding how I view the modern Catholic Church right now. Meaning, mainly, how irritated I am at the wretchedness of everything. A pope unable…
Many Catholics will be aware of the astonishing story of Sister Mary Wilhelmina, the Benedictine nun whose body was discovered to be incorrupt when it was exhumed in May of last year, four years after her death. When the sisters of the religious order she’d founded, the Benedictines of Mary, Queen of Apostles, decided to…
How often does an interview with a nation’s leader become a 1,000-year history lesson? If you live in America, never. Can you imagine an American politician being asked a question and beginning his answer, “Well, in 1842 we saw…” Heck, our current president can’t even remember what happened yesterday, much less in 988. But if…
Above: a scene from Ivanhoe. There has been a steady incline in popularity of the delightfully entertaining novels written by the brilliant author J. R. R. Tolkien. This is largely indebted to the fact that Hollywood has made 16 hours-worth of impressive epic film on these stories. I enjoy them and so do many people…
Here we are in 2024 and we are still debating the ins and outs of the Second Vatican Council. After 60 years of debates and failures, what are we to think? Has the Church improved? Are Catholics better formed? Is the liturgy any better? And so on, and so on. Of course, we are living…
I got marriage wrong, twice. Here’s why I’m grateful a priest never blessed me for being in that state. When I was in college, I entered into a relationship with another woman. She was a practicing Catholic; I was less practicing but more an occasional Catholic. Weekly Mass attendance was still part of her routine,…
Above: St. Basil Cathedral, Moscow. An Eastern Message to Western Trads, Part III Russian icon of St. Maximus St. Maximus the Confessor defended the Latins from accusations of heresy in the 7th century, just as John Bekkos and other Uniates did and still do in the 13th, 15th, and 16th centuries, and up to the…
For those of us for whom Ignatius Press has long been a source of nourishment to the soul, Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J., its founder and publisher, remains a revered figure. Without question, his publications have been a principal pipeline these past forty years for almost everything of value produced in the Catholic world. But for…
