A sub-category of News.
I turned 45 this year, just a few days after Ash Wednesday. Here in the Northeast, it had been an especially grueling winter for me: taxing on the mental health front, forlorn feelings of monotony and seemingly never-ending days of cold winds and gray skies. Celebrative holidays had come and gone, and I was perversely…
While studying scholastic theology when I was preparing for the priesthood, St. John Henry Newman inspired me to examine early apostolic Catholic spirituality. Then, over 35 years ago now, I sought out a life of semi-solitude to intensify this search and practice contemplation, and I rediscovered the sublime spirituality that we have so recently lost….
As we near Holy Week, we remember the days of COVID tyranny when we were forced to celebrate Easter MMXX in Dry Mass fashion. For myself, I built an Easter fire in my backyard with my son. At that time, I was very grateful to have a Missal. But ever since I discovered the glories…
Above: Eastern Roman Emperor Justinian. In his recent article, my dear friend and editor-in-chief of OnePeterFive, Timothy Flanders, made an insightful observation regarding the Catholic-Orthodox debate between two most distinguished gentlemen, Erick Ybarra and Denny Sellen, hosted by Mr. Matt Fradd who runs the Pints with Aquinas podcast on YouTube. He pointed out that while…
Three years ago, my wife and I received a stamped postcard in our mailbox inviting our children to participate in the newly-founded After School Satan Club at our public elementary school up the street. Thank God our kids were, and continue to be, homeschooled; but I was nonetheless more than mildly uncomfortable with the thought…
Are you a tech optimist or pessimist? Do you think our advancing technology—in areas such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, robotics, and space technology—will make our world better or worse? And do you think the new technologies of the last two centuries have more helped or harmed the advancement of mankind? I’ve found that the…
Above: Benedict XIV presents his encyclical Ex Omnibus to the Comte de Stainville Étienne François, later the Duc de Choiseul. 350 years ago, on March 31, 1675, Bologna Prospero Lorenzo Lambertini was born in Bologna. He would later become Pope Benedict XIV, a figure whom Pope Pius XII described as “the greatest of his century,…
Something miraculous occurred during the 1970s at a university campus on the plains of Kansas. Scores of young students turned away from the heathenism they’d been raised in and embraced Catholicism. Many even became monks, nuns, or priests; a few were eventually consecrated bishops. Countless others became devout teachers, parents, and writers. What precipitated this…
I didn’t set out to learn about anti-Semitism from Palestinians. But I did. My organization the Vulnerable People Project has worked for years to serve vulnerable communities everywhere, from Afghanistan to Chinese-occupied East Turkestan to Nigeria to Gaza. And if there’s one thing I’ve learned, it’s that the first step to defending the vulnerable is…
I will guess that we have all heard the explanation of why this Sunday is called Laertare (“Rejoice”) and why we have rose (rosacea) vestments and that the Roman Station is at the Church of the Holy Cross in Jerusalem. St. John Henry Newman wrote of this church: Today’s prayers and antiphons focus on Jerusalem…
