“Thanksgiving Day. Let all give humble, hearty, and sincere thanks, now, but the turkeys.” ~ Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson’s Calendar Thankfully, much good fiction is not only read but also heard, as all families who have talkative, excitative elders know well. It is a phenomenon summed up in the proverbial marvel of strictly-spoken tales … Read more
“Do you not know,” says Saint Paul to the lax and factious Corinthians, “that we shall judge angels?” For they had ceded to the unbelievers around them the authority to judge a controversy between Christian brothers. But Jesus says, “Judge not, lest you be judged,” because the criterion by which we measure others will be … Read more
It is Passover, and Jesus has gone up to Jerusalem with his disciples. He has come to the Temple, where he finds people “selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the moneychangers at their business.” It is interesting to note what he does then, and what he does not do. He does not engage the … Read more
Last month, I discussed the tendency among prominent supporters of Pope Francis to speak as if he had very special and even divine qualities. Where does it come from? Some possibilities seem obvious. Any argument looks good if it favors the desired outcome, meaning that people who are convinced the pope’s new initiatives are right … Read more
Father Arne Panula died quite publicly and for a very long time. We kept hearing the end was near, but he kept on going and going. Besides in his coffin, the last time I saw him was when he took the podium at the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and offered a prayer. This movie-star-handsome man … Read more
“It’s time to face up to the harms the Sexual Revolution has caused. Whether you’re male or female, straight or gay, young or old, religious or irreligious: what kind of a world do you want to help create? A world in which every child has a legally recognized right to a relationship with both parents? … Read more
Various commentators, mostly from the conservative side but also a few sober-minded liberals, are expressing concern that a mob mentality—coming especially from the political left—is taking hold in America. They point to the disturbing evidence: clashes between groups in Charlottesville and Portland, Antifa commandeering busy streets in Portland and attacking motorists while police look the … Read more
When my friend’s little brother died, his family performed rites that are rare nowadays. They brought the body of their boy back home. They dressed him and laid him out for a wake in their dining room. They built his coffin and carved his headstone. They dug his grave and buried him with their own … Read more
“You young devils,” says Satan, the wily old misanthrope, wise in the ways of man, “believe you can damn the human vermin with reasoned arguments. Reason, as you should know, and for your own sake you had better remember, is of the Enemy. When we fight with it, we fight with his own weapons. What … Read more
Catholic Church employee Aaron Bianco says he has “endured physical and emotional violence” at the hands of Catholic laymen, watchdog groups, and media outlets. Specifically, he charges Church Militant and LifeSite News with slashing the tires of his car, making death threats, and physically attacking him outside of Mass. Announcing his resignation after what he … Read more
You look over your fence and see your neighbor in his backyard, with a big pot over a roaring fire. Clouds of steam are rising from it, and they bring to you the sharp sweet smell of something cooking, something you know very well, but somehow it doesn’t fit the scene. “What are you cooking … Read more
In the totalitarian regime of Big Brother’s imaginary socialistic utopia in Oceania in 1984, Winston Smith lives a sordid dehumanized life devoid of all the traditional sources of happiness that have fulfilled human beings throughout the ages. Orwell portrays a politically correct social order that robs human beings of dignity, political rights under the law, … Read more
It took a while, but writers Melinda Selmys and Damon Linker have finally owned up to the thing gnawing at their consciences for years; they no longer believe the claims of the Catholic Church and have left. Selmys is a blogger at Patheos who calls herself “queer.” Linker is a columnist at The Week noted … Read more
And he said, “Sit down here while I go over there to pray.” And he took Peter and the two sons of Zebedee with him. He began to feel sorrow and grief and fear and weariness. Then he said to them, “My soul is sad unto death. Stay here and keep watch with me” (Matt. … Read more
On September 21, the well-known German magazine, Der Spiegel, featured a long article on the whole career of Pope Francis under the title “The Greatest Crisis in the History of the Church.” The immediate issues brought up concerned the pope’s handling of abuse issues while he was still in Argentina. Most people are by now … Read more
“[W]hat the Church holds to be true about human sexuality is not a stumbling block. It is the only real path to joy and wholeness. There is no such thing as an ‘LGBTQ Catholic’ or a ‘transgender Catholic’ or a ‘heterosexual Catholic,’ as if our sexual appetites defined who we are; as if these designations … Read more
Pope Francis famously downplays law and doctrinal formulations, which he often associates with Pharisaism, in favor of “discernment,” which seems to involve the direct application of ultimate considerations to particular situations. As he put the matter in his address at the conclusion of the Synod on the Family, “The true defenders of doctrine are not … Read more
If anything becomes clear as we consider the current raging questions on the American scene, it is that concern for truth is readily cast aside. While falsehood and deceit, to be sure, are nothing new in human history—they began when Adam and Eve tried to hide themselves from God after their sin—it’s fair to say … Read more
Riding his bicycle on a country road in Northern Virginia, a man named Matt met Jesus unexpectedly this week. Strangers found the 53-year-old man lying in a ditch with his toes still clipped into his pedals. Matt’s wife had gone up ahead, but when he did not catch up, she turned around and pedaled back … Read more
A priest of the Chicago archdiocese, Fr. Paul Kalchick, has been disciplined by his bishop for burning a Nazi flag that had been lying in a closet somewhere. It was left over from many years before, when German Catholics wanted very much to believe, along with plenty of temporizers, trimmers, and German bishops, that National … Read more