One of the most bizarre and troubling episodes in the history of the Catholic Church occurred Friday, October 29, 2021—and considering that the Church has endured heresies on the Person of Christ, the era of the anti-popes, and the Protestant Reformation, that’s saying something. I am referring to the pastoral consequences of President Biden’s visit … Read more
For nearly three decades I devoted myself to upholding the dignity of individuals in far off lands who were denied freedoms most Americans routinely took for granted. Never could I have imagined that our God-given rights, enshrined in the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution, would be threatened on our own shores as we … Read more
I have never felt so different and “other” as I do now. I am one of the unvaccinated. Sitting here in the middle of Sydney, where double vax rates approach 90%, with the unvaccinated to be shunned until (if?) we hit 95%, it is easy to feel alone. So, while almost all my friends and … Read more
Overwhelmingly, the most common experience of Catholic priests, parishes, and dioceses is one of overwork, hackneyed originality, and shortness of funds. In truth, we are in survival mode; few parishes or dioceses have any growth or effective plans for the future years. Most Catholics no longer know what mission is. They hopelessly confuse it with … Read more
King Lear interweaves the story of Lear and his daughters with the parallel story of Gloucester and his sons in such a way that we cannot truly speak of plot and subplot but only of co-plots woven together with majestic skill. Lear is betrayed by the deception of his self-serving daughters Regan and Goneril; Gloucester … Read more
LifeSiteNews published an article three weeks ago, on October 18, on Covaxin, a vaccine (a bona fide inactivated virus vaccine, not an mRNA neologism) developed by Bharat Biotech in India. It could potentially prove a breakthrough in many Catholics’ long wait for a vaccine that would satisfy the dual concerns of ethical unimpeachability and medical … Read more
Someone once told me about a priest he knew who, for all the apparent pointlessness of the exercise, continued to pray for the conversion of St. Augustine. When it was suggested that perhaps his prayers might be more usefully deployed in helping sinners, the priest would insist that it was perfectly plausible for God, existing … Read more
The “popular movements” are the vanguard of the Catholic social justice warriors. They consist of a vast menagerie of Leftist activists and community organizers found in political action groups, Basic Christian Communities, worker organizations, and indigenous peoples’ lobbies. They exist worldwide, especially in less-developed nations, and they implement the tenets of liberation theology. Pope Francis … Read more
There’s a growing consensus on the Left regarding religious exemptions: namely, that they’re absurd. “Dump COVID vaccine religious exemptions—there is no Church of Moderna Disbelievers,” declares the editorial board at the Los Angeles Times. There have been similar op-eds at MSNBC and Wired. But it’s not just frustration with resistance to the vaccine mandates. In … Read more
Last month I wrote a piece entitled Unclean! Unclean! in which I criticized the decision of the Archbishop of Moncton to divide his flock between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, and to refuse any longer to nourish the latter with sacramental graces. That piece lasted some thirty-six hours before it was removed. Apparently, one doesn’t … Read more
The Church has an ancient storehouse of vast treasures, old and yet fresh as the morning dew. Most of us have forgotten them, these treasures which used to be in the daily lives of the simplest peasant in medieval Europe. The feasts and fasts, commemorations, processions, prayers, and hymns that make up the traditional liturgical … Read more
Damien Le Guay is a contemporary Catholic French thinker and author of two important, but unfortunately untranslated, books. Qu’avons-nous perdu en perdant la mort? (What Have We Lost in Losing Death?) questions how today’s funerary customs have erased death from human consciousness. La mort en cendres: la crémation aujourd’hui, que faut-il en penser? (Death in … Read more
She was only 24 years old when she fell asleep in the Lord—a tragic swimming accident in late September. Bright, kind, and beautiful, she had recently graduated from a Catholic college in California and was studying nursing at a university in Ohio. When our community heard what happened, we were shaken to lose such a … Read more
I do not think of myself as a visionary or a prophet. Indeed, I am dubious of such phenomena. I’d prefer to call my experience a “mental image” or a “dream image.” It came to me in that in-between state when I was not sure if I was praying or dozing. But it really doesn’t … Read more
The transactional nature of the political scene in Washington, D.C., is well-known. A friend of mine once summarized things well: it’s the kind of place where people are keen to feign interest in you for just as long as nobody more interesting, useful, or prestigious enters the room. As a newcomer to the District, this … Read more
“I grew, day by day, more moody, more irritable, more regardless of the feelings of others. I suffered myself to use intemperate language to my wife. At length, I even offered her personal violence.” So reveals the main character of Edgar Allan Poe’s short story “The Black Cat,” about a man who plunges ever deeper … Read more
But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, saying, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out for fear. —Matthew 14:26 I have always liked Halloween as a joke that’s hard to get. The joke, as I see it, is that death is something to smile about, even laugh about. … Read more
I try my best to temper my tech-skeptic instincts, but despite these efforts, I can’t help but consider all the worst possibilities of the coming “Metaverse.” In fact, the more I read about it, the more I think Christians should start preparing for it now, before we, along with our family and friends, are pulled … Read more
The members of the Fairfax County and Loudoun County School Boards here in Northern Virginia are little more than pipsqueaks and perverts (there is one good member of the Loudoun County School Board. There are none at Fairfax). They are power-hungry, low-level bureaucratic hacks who don’t give two hoots for the children under their care … Read more
One idiom is showing up more often lately, as people claim that the gene therapy device speciously known as The Vaccine is “the hill they will die on,” especially as mandates close in on people’s livelihoods and children’s safety. Consider this post from @TheEX_ERnurse: “A woman bled out in front of my eyes after the … Read more