Fear Not… a Little Horror Never Hurt a Soul
Can Catholics “do” horror on Halloween? The answer is a qualified one—and it is (shocker) in favor of horror.
Stories From the Silver Screen: Life Is Beautiful
Life Is Beautiful shows that life, all life, truly is beautiful—yes, even when it leaves us seemingly helpless on the inside of a concentration camp.
The Battle According to Q
Six years after the last Q posts, their message still holds: encouragement on the eve of battle. The fight is at hand, it’s a spiritual one, and there will not be a neutral ground.
Of Vampires and Virtue: Friendship in Bram Stoker’s Dracula
Few novels offer a more vivid portrait of authentic friendship than Dracula, and few set it against a darker villain. The Count has slaves, victims, and brides, but not a single friend.
The Hidden Life of Exorcists
We don’t need to know why Fr. Chad Ripperger was asked to step out of the limelight. But today’s cult of celebrity exorcists feeds an unhealthy curiosity about the demonic, and any good priest should want to live his vocation in hiddenness.
Playing Games
Athletes who walk off the court during the national anthem reveal what sports have become. Once touted as the place where character was formed, sports have become an epicenter of privilege.
Considerations on the Cardinal’s Considerations
The DDF’s new document Venite ad me deliberately avoids “terminological precision,” and it misses the real story. “Epochal change” is not the problem; the failure of faith is what it is all about.
Re-Enchanting Catholic Speech
To stay respectable in a materialist culture, even orthodox Catholics have turned miracles into safe metaphors. A disenchanted world will only be converted by a Church that speaks with the absolute conviction that the physical veil has been pierced.
Seeing Is Not Believing: A Review of You Can See Everything
The new documentary You Can See Everything never settles whether Elizabeth Holmes was victim or victimizer. But it does make one important point: a person can be allowed to see everything and still come away learning nothing.
Medicalization and Death
“White coats can make acceptable what brown shirts can’t.” From lethal injections to Canada’s MAID regime, dressing death up as medicine sanitizes killing and explains away our fallen nature.
Dating, Cringe, and St. Thomas Aquinas
Catholic marriages have collapsed since 1975, and one overlooked obstacle keeps young Catholics from even dating: cringe. With St. Thomas Aquinas as our guide, Catholic young adult culture can become more beautiful, more friendship-centered, and more natural.
I Earned It, I Don’t Owe You Anything
Earning something may give us a right to possess it, but not freedom from responsibility for its use. Has personal comfort replaced our Christian responsibility to future generations?
Truth and Triumphalism
We need to defend a Catholic sense of “triumphalism.” Since truth and the triumph of Christ are inseparable, politeness must not mute the Faith.
Truth Is Not a What, but a Who
When Pilate asked “What is truth?” he did not stay for an answer. Yet the answer was standing before him, and its silence spoke more eloquently than any argument.
The Church Bends But Doesn’t Break
In almost 35 years as a Catholic, I’ve seen the Church bend quite a bit through scandal, corruption, and confusion. But it hasn’t broken, and it won’t, because the Lord has promised to protect it.
The Slippery Tales of Fr. James Martin S.J.
Fr. James Martin wants you to believe homosexuals hear relentless condemnation from the pulpit. His stories are what Mark Twain would call “stretchers” and I would call, well, lies.
The Future of the Pro-Life Movement
Roe v. Wade has fallen, but abortions are rising and Catholic apathy is suffocating the pro-life movement. It’s time for the faithful to pray, give, teach, and show up to witness for life.
On the Twentieth Anniversary of The God Delusion: Has the New Atheism Unraveled?
Twenty years after The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins is still trotting out the same tired arguments. Meanwhile, philosophy, science, and a wave of conversions have shown that God was never so easily explained away.
Death by Crucifix
Moments after preaching that death comes for us all, an Ecuadorian priest was killed at the altar by a falling crucifix. The shocking tragedy invites us to contemplate the awful weight of the Cross and the swiftness of death.
Poison Ivies and the Pope
The alleged Cornell gang rape exposes a debauched youth culture the American Church has largely failed to confront. The Church must rebuild America’s moral demography—starting in each human heart.