A sub-category of News.
Recently, I have been more disappointed than surprised to hear three unimpeachably faithful and admirable priests attempt in their preaching to ground Catholic belief in “experience.” One argued that reception of Communion by supporters of abortion is “incompatible with the ‘experience’ of Catholic truth,” another encouraged those “who have ‘experienced’ God’s truth” to “share the…
Since the October 7 attacks of 2023, I’ve heard more about “Judeo-Christian values” than I have about the Beatitudes. Every pundit and politician now drops the phrase like it’s a secret handshake. Say it, and you’re in the club. Don’t say it, and suddenly you’re suspect. The message is simple: a good Westerner waves two…
When this Sunday comes around, with its snappy Collect, I am minded of the early fourth-century martyr St. Expeditus. The Latin text of the Collect reads: Omnipotens et misericors Deus, universa nobis adversantia propitiatus exclude: ut mente et corpore pariter expediti, quae tua sunt, liberis mentibus exsequamur. Translated slavishly: Almighty and merciful God, having been…
Of all the many dark centuries in the history of Christendom, there is no denying that the 20th century was one of the darkest. It was also the deadliest. In terms of the sheer body count, the last century, with its wars of irreligion, fought with industrialized weapons of mass destruction, was the most murderous…
I have just dropped off my five-year-old to his Catechesis of the Good Shepherd class. The young children enter a beautifully decorated room, adorned with holy images and bathed in a subdued light; what proceeds is the quietest gathering of preschoolers you have ever heard. Two floors down, my oldest son is engaged with the…
“He’s gay. She’s straight. They’re happily married,” reads the title of a recent Washington Post article, discussing a couple who has been in a monogamous relationship for almost ten years. “A new crop of couples are making content about their mixed-orientation marriages, divorced from sexual attraction but not love,” the article stated. Partners Samantha Wynn…
The Apostolic Exhortation Dilexi Te limits its discussion of “migrants” to three paragraphs: 73–75. Paragraph 73 claims that “The experience of migration accompanies the history of the People of God,” citing Abraham, Moses, and the Flight into Egypt. Paragraph 74 focuses on two 19th-century Church figures involved in the care of migrants in the Americas:…
Just as a good diet nourishes the body, prayer also nurtures the soul. It is an essential dimension of life that is often missed by many, yet the heart of man, regardless of his faith, yearns knowingly and more often unknowingly for God. The simple reason for this is that God is love, and so…
As a current author of Catholic fiction, it may seem strange to title my article something so bleak and seemingly contradictory as the “Death of Catholic Fiction.” I’d like to clarify first what I mean by “death” in this case. We Catholics take for granted the collection of fiction we have accumulated from a handful…
Crisis editor Eric Sammons has made written and spoken pleas for laity calm in the aftermath of Pope Leo XIV’s odd ice-block blessing and refusal to condemn Cardinal Blase Cupich’s decision to award a pro-abortion politician with a lifetime achievement honor. Even on gasket-blowing days like yesterday, when the Chicago-native pontiff promoted his fellow Chicagoan…
