A sub-category of News.
Catholicism, and the conservative movement more generally, is currently facing a profound and unexpected dilemma. As they succeed in bringing in young men, they are driving away young women. Young men seem to be coming back to church, but young women are leaving. Why is this? And more importantly, what should be done about it?…
This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875) This morning also, Jesus goes with his Disciples to Jerusalem. He is fasting, for the Gospel tells us that he was hungry. He approaches a fig-tree, which is by the wayside; but finds nothing on it, save leaves only. Jesus, wishing…
Above: Christ in the House of Simon by Dieric Bouts (1440s). This was the Gospel for Passion Thursday in which an earlier, similar episode took place. Tractate 50 (John 11:55-12) Yesterday’s lesson in the holy Gospel, on which we spoke as the Lord enabled us, is followed by today’s, on which we purpose to speak…
This text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875) Early in the morning of this day, Jesus sets out for Jerusalem, leaving Mary, his Mother, and the two sisters Martha and Mary Magdalene, and Lazarus, at Bethania. The Mother of Sorrows trembles at seeing her Son thus expose himself to…
Reading his biography, one can hardly understand why a professor of theology and philosophy like Monsignor Brunero Gherardini was attacked so vehemently.[1] Born in 1925 in Prato (Tuscany), he died at the venerable age of 92—in 2017—in Santa Marinella (Rome). Throughout his entire life dedicated to serving the Church, Gherardini followed a consistent intellectual and…
Sir Keir Starmer is the Knight Commander of the Order of the Bath, King’s Counsel, Member of Parliament, Privy Councillor, His Majesty’s First Lord of the Treasury, and the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. And yet for all these titles, his government has descended into the morass of…
In one of his most significant monographs, titled Les Origines intellectuelles du léninisme (1977 – The intellectual origins of Leninism), the French scholar of Russian Communism Alain Besançon observed that ideologies always produce what can be called “langue de bois” (“wooden language”). A specific characteristic of this type of language is the semantic ‘mutation’ to…
What is real? What is reality? What is virtual reality? How real is virtual reality? How often do we think of these questions? Do we think of these questions? Do we think? Do we? These questions spring to mind because I’ve been spending some time with the great contemporary Catholic philosopher Peter Kreeft—not in person,…
Part I: the ‘Seven Arrows’ icon Part II: the ‘Softener of Evil Hearts’ icon This is the concluding part of an essay on the wonder-working icons of the Sorrowful Mother of God who has manifested herself more than once in the most difficult periods of Russian history, always appearing as a guide and point of…
Editor’s note: text is taken from The Liturgical Year, authored by Dom Prosper Gueranger (1841-1875) Today, we begin, as does the holy Gospel, to number the days which precede the Death, the Sacrifice, of the Lamb of God. St. John, in the 12th Chapter of his Gospel, tells us that this is the Sixth day…
