A sub-category of News.
The week before his inauguration, President Trump threatened Canada with huge tariffs; in response, Canadian Prime Minister Justn Trudeau, summarily resigned. Mind you, I dislike little Justin as much as anyone, and shall be very happy to see him clear out sooner rather than later. But the manner in which it was accomplished, it seems…
Many years ago, I attended the wedding of one of my evangelical college friends. I had tremendous admiration for this young man. He exuded a wild, raw masculinity tethered to a passionate, infectious devotion to Christ. The wedding (to his college sweetheart) exemplified that ethos. While the ceremony was a pious affair filled with prayer…
Mike Lewis, founder of the website Where Peter Is, has taken a swipe at exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger. But “taking a swipe” is actually too soft a term when one considers that Mike Lewis didn’t merely challenge certain things Fr. Ripperger has said or written. Throughout his 4,000-word screed, Lewis accuses Fr. Ripperger of making…
One does not have to turn over too many pages of Holy Scripture before learning the high cost of discipleship. So, what exactly is the price that we are expected to pay in order to follow Christ? To organize our entire lives in complete conformity to a God pierced and crucified for our sins? Love…
Ash Wednesday is the one day of the year when we can see if the strangers we meet in street and store are Catholic—at least we can see who went to Mass to get their Lent started. While the black ashes clearly mark the brows of the baptized, it isn’t clear to most of those…
The sacred season of Lent, called the Great Fast by our eastern Catholic brethren, was instituted by the Apostles themselves as Dom Gueranger writes: Lent, founded upon the three pillars of prayer, fasting, and almsgiving is the primary season of penance in the year and must be observed with the greatest strictness for the love…
Above: in 1979, Mont Saint Michel was listed as a “World Heritage Site” by Unesco, receiving over 2.5 million visitors a year. The origin of Mont Saint Michel dates back to the year 708. Michael the Archangel appeared in a vision to Saint Aubert, bishop of Avranches, and asked him to build a sanctuary in…
Two years ago, I wrote an essay, “C’mon, Ring Those Bells!,” in response to the decision of an Italian bishop to limit how much churches could ring bells due to complaints about “noise pollution.” I argued that bells are aural sacramentals: they make present a reminder of God through our ears. That piece was among…
Last week the Pew Research Center released a new survey on religion in America; their first major study of this type since 2014. Upon the survey’s publication, I could almost hear a collective groan from Catholics, since we’ve come to approach such polls with a sense of dread. The question isn’t, “Will it be bad?”…
Sometimes I dream of writing a book explaining Christianity for complete outsiders. I would write it without using any of the traditional jargon that can be a stumbling block to understanding a message that is meant to be for all. It would also help insiders who have been brought up on a jargon that has…
