A sub-category of News.
Somewhere, about ten years ago, just as Pope Francis was getting into “synodality,” I remember hearing an author say that if the pontiff was looking for a truly relevant but countercultural theme for a synod, “chastity” was the one. I think the idea came from George Weigel, but I’ve never been able subsequently to track…
In 1842, when Fr. Edward Sorin stepped onto the cold Indiana prairie, he set out to build a Catholic university that would shape saints, sharpen minds, and send out citizens anchored in faith. The place was small, the winters brutal, and the resources thin. But Sorin insisted that Notre Dame would shine as a “powerful…
The Holy Father has released an apostolatic letter title “In Unitate Fidei: On the 1700th Annivesrary of the Council of Nicaea.” The opening lines affirm the essence of why we should be “rigid” about Tradition: The very concept of unity in faith is welcome to all traditionalists, as we have continually sounded the alarm that…
Attendance at Mass has plummeted since that New Springtime for the Church, heralded by the Second Vatican Council. There has been no springtime. Indeed, in no area of human culture has there been any such—not in the fine arts, film, literature, education, social institutions, civic life, folkways; not in the ordinary interchanges of human beings…
When I was attending a daily Mass in my home diocese during college, I genuflected (as was my practice at the time) before receiving Holy Communion. Before the priest gave the final blessing, he made an announcement that he noticed that there were several people who genuflected before receiving the Eucharist. We were reminded that…
During the 27 years Karol Wojtyla reigned as Christ’s Vicar on earth, an unprecedented tenure beginning in 1978 and ending with his death in 2005, he managed to accomplish a great many things, not the least being countless pastoral visits (129 to be exact) around the globe, including places which had only the most tenuous…
All good things come to their end, with the exception of God’s love and the eternal joy of Heaven. Thus, the Church, in her liturgical wisdom, allows the cycle of the year to come to its own solemn conclusion, so that we may be stirred up again to begin anew. As this series of reflections…
Friday, November 21, is “World Vasectomy Day.” It is this November’s culmination of a variety of global celebrations of male sterilization. Each year, the first three weeks of November are set aside for that purpose, with activists in one country—this year, Argentina—acting as organizers. The annual celebration of vasectomies is significant because it plays into…
It is seemingly impossible to engage in a conversation about conservative politics, or even the intersection of religion and politics, without the topic of “Groypers” rearing its head. If you know what a Groyper is, or what “groyperism” is, then I will not have to define what it is. If you do not know what…
Above: a colossal statue of Carlo Borromeo erected in Arona, Italy in 1697. Doctor in civil and ecclesiastical law, an aristocrat by birth on his father’s side—Count Gilbert of Arona—and also on his mother’s side, Margaret (the sister of Pope Pius IV), who descended from the Milanese branch of the famous Medici family, Charles Borromeo…
