For a remarkable example of overplaying your hand, not to mention sheer audacity, behold the letter by 60 Catholic Democrats to the U.S. bishops. It is a surreal document. Reading it leaves one with mouth slightly open, staring and blinking at the page. In asserting its signers’ unrestricted right to advance abortion as “proud” Catholic … Read more
We Catholics owe a debt to Dave Ramsey. The Evangelical Protestant has helped millions of Americans fight the scourge of usury far more fiercely than our own clerics or laymen. Ask most parishes today for a class on money management and they would turn to Ramsey’s “Financial Peace University.” His most popular book, The Total … Read more
Western culture has been under attack since its inception. From the 300 Spartans at the Hot Gates, to Lenin, Marx, and the Cold War, this is nothing new. There are dark forces roaming the world that would usurp the sacred role of transcendence at the heart of the Western tradition. Catholicism, a defining institution of … Read more
I imagine that most everyone has heard the term “woke,” a term that refers to a supposed state of enlightenment to the issues of our time. In a way, it is a bit of an amorphous term, and I have seen people of all political and religious stripes employ its usage. However, it is largely … Read more
In my recent book-length poem The Hundredfold, you will find this hymn, inspired by the parable of the Prodigal Son, to be sung to the melody “Old One Hundred Twenty-Fourth,” a melody you may know from the hymn “Turn Back, O Man”: I shall arise, and seek my Father’s house. Sated am I with all … Read more
The Massive Secular State (MSS) looms like a forbidding shadow over the future of the Catholic Church. This form of government is aggressively secular, and aggressively growing. It is also anti-Catholic—designed, whether explicitly or implicitly, to work against the desires of the Church. And although the Church has long battled various governments, the MSS is … Read more
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, in what would surely anger the Marxist-founded Black Lives Matter (BLM)—which has boasted to “burn down” the “Western-prescribed nuclear-family-structure”—recently stated that kneeling during the playing of national anthems at sporting events was not only provocative but an act of discrimination. Hungary is one of 14 host nations to the Euro … Read more
Poetry is at the heart of human nature and civilization. When one looks back over the history of civilization, it is often accompanied by, or begins with, poetry. The very apogee of the civilization in question inevitably converges with the age of poetic acme. Indeed, the very ascent of civilization and the spiritual vitality that … Read more
COVID-19 vaccine mandates are being imposed on college students across the nation, including at many Catholic universities. Before returning to campus, students must first scale a vaccination wall or gain a medical exemption. Almost all institutions also provide exemptions for students with religious and conscientious objections. But Creighton University (where I have served on the … Read more
Sudden rumors that Pope Francis may issue possible restrictions on his predecessor Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum has caused an uproar among devotees of the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). Eric Sammons highlighted here at Crisis the growth and passionate desire among some of the faithful for the traditional form of the liturgy, and he noted … Read more
So, Joe Biden did not, after all, interrupt his preparations for the planned Super Summit with Vladimir Putin the other day in order to fly down to Rome and see the pope. It is just as well, perhaps, inasmuch as the Vatican having nixed the notion of allowing Biden to attend morning Mass with His … Read more
Seven years ago, I wrote a dark comedy about political correctness run amok in the military. To quote from the back cover of Insecurity, “Gays, Muslims, and security threats are multiplying at Fort Camp, but no one seems to notice.” The Muslim officers at Fort Camp and other nearby army bases are plotting a coup … Read more
Senator Tim Kaine (D-VA) recently made headlines in his attempt to redefine the Catholic understanding of the Eucharist. The senator claimed that some U.S. bishops are attempting to change what it means to receive Communion. The debate revolves around the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) plan to be more specific in outlining the … Read more
You must admit, it’s incredible. Even in a Church that has two thousand years of history, it’s incredible. The Catholic Church in America, the Catholic bishops and all the laity, are being lectured to about Church teaching by a bunch of heretics. The bishops and priests of the Church are being chastised for even talking … Read more
Now that the COVID-19 lockdown is finally lifting (at least in America)—now that we can look back on a chaotic year and assess policy decisions that were often made hastily, with inadequate information— what lessons can we learn? Those lessons will be important to learn because although we can hope and pray that the worst … Read more
Can a faithful Catholic also be a loyal patriot? How far may a Catholic go along with a political regime which actively seeks to attack and destroy his mother Church? Are there redlines at which a Catholic, even if he loves his native land, must firmly plant his feet and declare brazenly, “I will not … Read more
We are at a time of grave crisis for the Catholic Church in America—steep declines in attendance, lost moral authority, and significant public scandal regarding pro-abortion “Catholic” politicians, just to name a few issues. So in the midst of this mess, what were our shepherds, the successors to the Apostles, doing when they (virtually) gathered … Read more
I used to think that the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, was “just fine” if you took it at face value, and that the problem was people ignoring it or implementing it in a one-sided or distorted manner. I used to think that a “reform of the reform” could take … Read more
The fresh-faced American priest stood there like Ichabod Crane: startled and fence-post skinny inside a wind-whipped cassock, his sharp, dominant nose seemingly pointing out to the ruination before him. Squatters with blank stares picked through hills of garbage, beggars huddled in cardboard boxes, and lunatics muttered into the long-traveling winds coming from the plains of … Read more
The Divine Comedy is arguably the greatest poem ever written. It is also profoundly Catholic to its theological and philosophical core. Its author, Dante Alighieri, spent over ten years writing it, completing it a year before his death in 1321. It is fitting, therefore, that we should celebrate this finest of poetic masterpieces on the … Read more