John M. Grondelski

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is a former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All views expressed herein are his own.

recent articles

Catholic Thoughts on A Christmas Carol

Charles Dickens’s 1843 Christmas Carol was the beginning of a series of annual “Christmas books” that were very popular gifts in the Victorian era. But while many today treat A Christmas Carol as a child’s holiday story, it is anything but … and it makes many Catholic points. Some might disagree. Jesus is only obliquely mentioned … Read more

Growing Opposition to Prayer in Public Life

In the wake of the terrorist attack in San Bernardino on December 2, I noted a very disturbing reaction, which speaks of a growing cleft in American society. That chasm should be worrisome both to those who believe America is growing into two separate and irreconcilable societies, as well as for those who think American … Read more

The Danger of “Theocratic Majoritarianism”

Judge Richard Posner and Professor Eric Segall took to the pages of the December 2 New York Times to warn against the threat of “majoritarian theocracy.” Although summoning readers to beware of U.S. Supreme Court justice Antonin Scalia’s religious predilections, one might suggest the authors look in a mirror to ponder, instead, their own. For … Read more

St. John Paul II: No Mercy Without Truth

Mercy featured prominently in the polemics surrounding the recently concluded Synod on the Family. Mercy was frequently counterpoised to dogma as an appeal to dilute ecclesiastical practice, and admit to Holy Communion those who are now “remarried.” Cardinal Kasper went so far as to publish a book between the 2014 and 2015 Synod sessions: Mercy: The … Read more

“Internal Forum”: How Kasper May Achieve His Goal

The admission of divorced and “remarried” Catholics to the Eucharist was one of the neuralgic issues at the recently concluded Synod on the Family. The German Episcopal Conference in general and Cardinal Walter Kasper in particular had been agitating for change in ecclesiastical discipline to allow some divorced and “remarried” Catholics to Holy Communion, with … Read more

Is Marital Indissolubility Only an Ideal?

One way that dissidents (including various episcopal conferences that had been derelict in teaching Catholic marital morality in the immediate periods before and after Humanae vitae) sought to dilute the clear Magisterial teaching the encyclical provided them was to reduce its vision of married sexual life to an “aspirational norm.” In other words, the idea … Read more

The Apocalypse in Angers

I recently stumbled upon a rare treasure: the Apocalypse Tapestry of Angers, France. Displayed in a special wing of a local chateau, the 400 foot long, double-wide fourteenth-century tapestry depicts more than 70 scenes from the Book of Revelation, the New Testament’s last book. Comprehensive depictions of the Apocalypse are not too common, so I … Read more

The Proper Role of Eucharistic Ministers

Every three years as the Church is reading the Gospel of Mark, during the dog days of summer it stops for five weeks and turns instead to the Gospel of John for instruction on the Eucharist. We began this process July 26 with the account of the sign of the multiplication of the loaves, and … Read more

Preaching About Bruce Jenner?

Over at First Things, Presbyterian Peter Leithart ponders whether or not Bruce Jenner’s sex change should be addressed from the pulpit. While acknowledging that “[t]here are good arguments for ignoring the whole thing,” Leithart maintains that doing so is a “pastoral mistake.” I agree. There is a certain mentality in the Church that thinks (believes? hopes? … Read more

St. Louis Expels De Smet from Campus

American universities have long been citadels of political correctness but, in the past year, the noose has gotten even tighter. In many places, classic literature and great books have been banished or at least subjected to the prior censorship of “trigger warnings,” lest their content prove discomforting to some students. “Microaggressions” are practically universal. “Speech … Read more

Further Problems With American Eucharistic Practice

Christian Browne’s excellent critique of how receiving Communion-in-the-hand while standing are practices that might be reconsidered to strengthen American Catholics’ understanding of the Eucharist properly notes that these ideologically driven changes were required in no way by Vatican II or even the Holy See. Let me add three additional Eucharist-related phenomena bedeviling the “American Church” … Read more

Virtual Abortion Comes to Montana

I currently live overseas, where our cable provider gets U.S. TV programs with some delay. Right now, they’re advertising the new “Candid Camera,” a takeoff on the old show in which people are observed in incongruous situations, their reactions recorded by means of a hidden camera. “Laugh, relax a bit,” is the advertising hook. One … Read more

The Medical Profession’s War on Christian Ethics

Over a quarter century ago, Richard John Neuhaus coined the phrase “the naked public square” to describe efforts to drive religiously influenced values and their adherents out of public life and policy making. Neuhaus foresaw the intolerance of the “tolerant” hanging out a “practicing Christians/Jews please check your values here” sign. He also rightly pointed … Read more

What Should the Pope’s Ecology Encyclical Say?

There has been some discussion of news reports that Pope Francis plans to write an encyclical letter on ecology and the environment. In anticipation of a possible papal letter on those subjects, two recent articles struck my attention. Robb Willer, in the New York Times opines that one reason for the divergent political responses over how … Read more

An Easter Reflection on the Plague of Cremation

As Christians prepare to celebrate the Paschal Feast of the Lord’s Resurrection, we will hear a lot about the “empty tomb.” Indeed, this year—in which the Lectionary focuses on St. Mark—will be particularly stark: the women encounter the empty tomb and the “young man” and are “utterly amazed” (Mk 16: 1-7). As we celebrate the … Read more

Why “Progressives” Favor the State Over Society

The New York Times was abuzz March 5. The board of trustees of South Carolina’s Erskine College—a small, liberal arts college historically associated with the Presbyterian church—had issued a statement declaring that the school considered “all sexual activity outside the covenant of marriage [as] sinful and therefore ultimately destructive of the parties involved.” Not only did … Read more

Suicide, Homicide, Verbicide … “Dignicide”

Mercatornet, a pro-life blog about end-of-life issues, has just reported the latest doublespeak percolating among the anti-life crowd: “dignicide.” How to describe killing yourself, or getting somebody to kill you? “Murder” is so gauche in our voluntaristic, nominalistic culture in which the will defines reality: can you really be murdered if you agree to being … Read more

Ending Charitable Deductions to Feed the Leviathan State

Indiana University professor Fran Quigley urges, in the progressive Catholic magazine Commonweal, an end to deductibility of charitable contributions against federal income taxes. His argument rests primarily upon the twin beliefs that the U.S. social safety net is too thin and that lost revenues from charitable contribution deductibility would be better spent on governmental social welfare programs. His … Read more

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like … Winter Holiday

Lord Alfred Douglas, in a poem from the 1890s, euphemistically branded homosexual behavior as “the love that dare not speak its name.” In recent years, homosexual behavior has gotten quite vocal about itself, causing confusion over “love” and even “marriage.” Religion in general, however, and Judaism and especially Christianity in particular, have been muted—gagged might … Read more

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