A sub-category of News.
My father grew up in Florida, and most of his friends were Cuban. He often heard from them how wonderful Cuba had been before Fidel Castro’s revolution. My father once asked one of his friends how Castro managed to take over the county. He told him it was simple: first they would take over a…
For much of his life, John Henry Newman was a towering figure in the Church of England. A brilliant theologian, preacher, and professor at Oxford, he was widely respected for his intellect and piety. As a longtime Anglican priest, Newman devoted himself to defending the Church of England against both secularism and the perceived errors…
This 8th Sunday after Pentecost in the Vetus Ordo of the Roman Rite offers us a Gospel passage which is challenging to interpret: the Parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:1–9). The Epistle from Romans 8:12–17 unfolds the mystery of our divine adoption and the contrast between life according to the flesh and life according…
We live in a country whose citizenry have been, almost from the beginning of the Republic, carefully coached to observe all the requisite protocols. What that means, as a practical matter, is, quite simply, keeping religion and politics in separate compartments. In other words, Church and State must never be seen in the same room….
There’s good news and there’s bad news. The problem is that the good news isn’t very good, and we don’t know (yet?) how bad the bad news can be. Yes, you guessed it: I’m talking about “synodality.” The good news is that “synodality” might actually be meaningless. (That raises some questions about why, then, we…
Sir Keir Starmer, His Majesty’s current Prime Minister for Great Britain (he has others—equally all powerful—in his other realms of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Jamaica, and the rest), has sponsored legislation on September 5, 2025—the House of Lords (Hereditary Peers) Bill—in the House of Commons which would remove all the remaining hereditary peers. While in…
In the first three parts of this essay, we took a look at the history of nationalism in Western nations since the French Revolution, how the Catholic Church reacted to nationalism in that time frame, and, finally, we looked at the teachings of the popes regarding nationalism since 1789. In the final installment, I want…
Last week, the popular rapper Zuby, who has amassed a significant following on social media as a self-described “epitome of toxic positivity,” posted an article titled “My Honest Advice For Gen Z Men.” He includes 12 life tips for young men from his perspective as a “successful Millennial.” The article is actually quite good and…
Above: Rochester, Pennsylvania, Fr. Angelus’s hometown. Before following in the footsteps of St. Francis, Matthew Shaughnessy, competitive by nature, excelled at both baseball and basketball. My brothers Mike and Tim were avid readers. Mike preferred novels, while Tim leaned toward nonfiction, and neither of them shied away from books that, though not written in stone……
Above: Church of the Most Holy Trinity in Liesing, Austria. On his first day in office, in addition to signing a flurry of executive orders, President Joe Biden led a virtual swearing-in ceremony for “Day One Presidential Appointees,” that is, administrative staff for the White House and various governmental agencies. A few minutes into his…
