Surprising doctrines are heard of late. Our private lives and public lives, it is suggested, are completely different. We are quite astonished that our inner self can even recognize our outer self. We cannot judge, not merely “lest we be judged,” but also because we can conclude nothing about our inner life from our external … Read more
On the last day of the year, in many religious houses, the community gathers for a solemn chanting of the famous sixth century hymn, Te Deum Laudamus. This hymn is recited in the Sunday and Feast Day Office of the Breviary after the morning readings. The hymn is the common form of a thanksgiving prayer, … Read more
In the Fifth Sermon, entitled “Equanimity,” in the fifth book of his Parochial Sermons, delivered mostly in the 1830s, Newman speaks of the preparation for Christmas. Sometimes in Scripture, Newman points out, Christ’s coming seems a fearful thing. A “holy” fear or the “fear of the Lord,” no doubt, has its useful place, not only … Read more
Nine hundred years ago, in 1098, “four leagues distant” (as the old Catholic Encyclopedia measures it), from the French city of Dijon, St. Robert of Molesme founded the Abbey of Citeaux, the chief abbey of the Cistercian Order. I have, alas, never been there. One should not construct his life on what he has not … Read more
Msgr. Klaus Gamber, the German liturgical historian, remarked that the danger of the priest’s “facing-the-people” innovation in the Mass was that the priest would begin to think that he was an actor or master of ceremonies, not the mediator facing, with all the people in supplication, the same Lord and God. The priest would think … Read more
Contrary to initial impressions, this column is not about a virus or bug in the Windows setup of my computer. Rather, it is about an actual bug on the screen of my window facing Dalghren Chapel and the early morning sun. Looking out one day, I noticed a rather large—indeed, ugly—bug slowly crawling around on … Read more
Terse statements of principle are a feature of the American Founding and its continuing explication. The Declaration of Independence is the most well-known. Too, we know some non-Americans perceptively describe our character—de Tocqueville, Lord Bryce, or Jacques Maritain. On receiving Letters of Credence from the new U.S. Ambassador to the Holy See on December 16, … Read more
At a ceremony in a small naval chapel in Washington at which a nephew of mine was installed as master chief of the Naval Security Group Command, I gave the invocation. I had mentioned this occasion to my friend, Brother George Reilly, S.J., who, when World War II ended, had been a corpsman on a … Read more
Easter is this: Christ, true man, crucified under Pontius Pilate, a Roman governor in Palestine, died, was buried, and rose again on the third day. Several identifiable, credible witnesses saw him, ate with him. He was the same Jesus from Nazareth who died, not some other man. This man, Jesus, in fact, was executed in … Read more
Most families and ‘circles of friends’ today have, somewhere, members who were once baptized, confessed, first communioned, confirmed, married, or even ordained in the Church but who have explicitly or implicitly denied their faith. By their own testimony, they no longer believe it or practice it. Some are belligerent, others merely passive, even nostalgic. Some … Read more
On January 20, 1928, I had the good fortune to be born on a farm just north of Pocahontas, Iowa. I have an ornate baptismal certificate affirming that I was baptized in Sacred Heart Church in that town. My godparents were Art and Bernice McCarten, friends of my parents, Lawrence and Grace Schall. On my … Read more
At Midnight Mass in St. Peter’s in 1995, the Holy Father, our best teacher, repeated the majestic “time” themes of the incarnation – today, the hour. Hodie natus est: Today is born our Saviour, Christ the Lord. “The hour when the Son of God is born in the stable of Bethlehem is the hour in … Read more
In 1981, I collected the addresses that John Paul II had to that time given to university students and faculties. Each fall, the Holy Father addresses students of ecclesiastical universities and later of state universities in Rome. In the January 8, 1997, English edition of L’ Osservatore Romano, I noticed that the Mass for Italian … Read more
L’osservatore Romano, English edition, (29 January—5 March 1997), ran five essays on “satanism.” Reference was made there to an earlier study written by an unnamed French theologian entitled “Faith and Demonology,” published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, in 1975. The latter document covers the history of papal and Church thinking on … Read more
Writing on environmental aberrations in the Washington Times, Alston Chase, a good writer in this thorny field, proposes that the hostility of environmental advocates to human progress goes back to the Garden of Eden, to its suggestion that in the beginning man was good and in complete harmony with nature. To cure subsequent pollution and … Read more
All sin consists in willing a disorder into some existing good. Only individual persons can sin. Institutions, be they economic, ecclesial, familial, voluntary, academic, or civil, as such, cannot sin. They are not persons who bear reality in the world. Institutions are patterns or ways of acting toward ourselves or others. As such, persons do … Read more
John Paul II issued his encyclical, Centesimus Annus, six years ago, on the feast of St. Joseph, May 1, 1991. Thus, the year 1997 is 106 years after Leo XIII’s Rerum Novarum, sixty-six years after Pius XI’s Quadragesimo Anno, forty-six years after John XXIII’s Mater et Magistra, and twenty-six years after Paul VI’s Octogesima Adveniens, … Read more
In 1997, Easter fell early on march 30. On Easter Thursday, 1966 (April 14), Margaret Waugh wrote to Lady Diana Cooper recounting the death at home of her father, Evelyn Waugh, on Easter Sunday. “Don’t be too upset about Papa,” Margaret wrote. “I think it was kind of a wonderful miracle. You know how he … Read more
Chesterton remarked that, logically, the “survival of the fittest” the survival of those who survived. Thus, all that exist, are, by definition, “fit,” no matter how decrepit. Sometimes while shaving in the morning there is a certain consolation in this observation. Two days before receiving a copy of the Holy Father’s remarks on evolution, I … Read more
In October, in Spokane, Washington, I baptized my new little grandnephew, one Sean Michael Jones. This young gentleman was born the day the Senate upheld the partial-birth abortion veto. The irony of these two events did not escape me. I recall being very careful not to splash a lot of water on the children while … Read more