At the beginning of the summer, an open letter by the heads of eight private schools in Washington D.C. appeared in the Washington Post and caused waves throughout education circles on the internet. In this letter, these modern-day educators announced that they were taking the supposedly radical step of eliminating Advanced Placement (AP) courses from … Read more
One of the positive aspects of a particular political party holding power for several years or even decades in a particular city, state, or country is that you can see if their policies really work or not. They don’t have an opposing party to limit their influence so there are no excuses, such as, “Things … Read more
Over the past few months my mind has turned repeatedly to the case of my former bishop, Kieran Conry of the diocese of Arundel and Brighton. He resigned back in 2014 after Simon Hodgkinson, the aggrieved husband of Olivia, went to the press with claims that his wife had been enjoying an illicit affair with … Read more
The parish priest told the class, with all the authority of a papal decree, that the creation account in Genesis, including the first human couple, was a myth. It was enough to raise not a few eyebrows, mine and my wife’s included. As a murmur began to build among the stunned attendees, a passage from … Read more
“The witch hunt for gay priests must end. Now.” That’s how homosexualist Jesuit Fr. James Martin flatly states his view regarding how many Catholics—though not nearly enough—have finally come to terms with the fact that a homosexual culture within the Church’s hierarchy has fueled the clergy abuse crisis. It has fueled both the majority of … Read more
In my previous article I expressed some disagreement with people who said that the now disgraced Theodore McCarrick must never have had more than a “notional” faith, because otherwise he never would have done the wicked things he did. In the meantime, one of my acquaintances described her encounters with McCarrick, who was invariably nice … Read more
Miami police arrested two priests for “lewd and lascivious behavior.” One of them was also charged with “indecent exposure.” The two priests were in a parked car in a public place, performing a “sex act.” As the policeman noted, “there were no tints on the windows.” Let’s talk about these two men, and what this … Read more
Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II declaration on religious liberty, appeals to what it says is a growing awareness of human dignity. More recent Vatican pronouncements, including the new language in the Catechism on the death penalty, have done the same. In some ways, it’s easy to see why. The Church holds that God created man … Read more
In the dark of an August night in 1961, the Russians threw up a barrier between East and West Berlin which came to be known as the Berlin Wall. On June 12, 1987, Ronald Reagan stood at a podium in Berlin and delivered his famous speech, in which he said, “Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this … Read more
Many civilized readers just don’t know what to do with Flannery O’Connor—and for good reason. If you mashed together the works of Saint Thomas Aquinas and Quentin Tarantino, I think you would get something very like a Flannery O’Connor story, full of theological brilliance and significance, but also earthy, violent, aggressive, and even ugly. O’Connor’s … Read more
The Pope’s popularity in Italy has dropped from 88 percent in 2013 to 71 percent in 2018. But you’d be mistaken to think that the decline has to do with Archbishop Viganò’s charge that Francis had covered-up for Cardinal McCarrick. The poll was taken before that story broke. According to the poll’s author, much of … Read more
“I’m addicted to the Internet because it’s more interesting than people.” ~ Dilbert The headline in the Wall Street Journal jumped out at me: “Step Away From the Phone”—as in “step away from the weapon” or “step away from the edge of the cliff.” And here’s the article’s sub-title: “To help screen addicts break the habit, … Read more
A recent article in Washington Lawyer magazine, which is sent to members of the District of Columbia Bar, discussed what it said was ongoing segregation in public schools six decades after the Supreme Court’s landmark Brown v. Board of Education decision. Brown declared de jure racial segregation in public schools an unconstitutional violation of equal … Read more
The French film L’Apparition appears on cinema screens this weekend. It is the story of an investigative journalist and a young woman who is allegedly having visions of the Virgin Mary. It is a movie that explores belief and skepticism more than faith, however. The film’s main character is Jacques Mayano (Vincent Lindon). He is … Read more
South Africa has been in the news recently for all the wrong reasons again. Under African National Congress leader Cyril Ramaphosa’s diktats, unruly mobs have been stirred up to confiscate white-owned land and even kill white property owners. Of course, the problem of racial tension in South Africa is hardly new. Dutch colonizers, known as … Read more
For keen insight into some of the malevolent forces at work in the Church right now, an unexpected source is a fascinating book by Father Charles Theodore Murr, titled, The Godmother: Madre Pascalina. Published in May 2017, for the centenary of Fatima, it is one of the most interesting yet underreported Catholic books of recent … Read more
Instead of helping faithful Catholics put things into perspective on the predatory priest crisis, several Catholic college leaders have made things worse. Buffalo’s Canisius College president, John Hurley, issued a letter to the campus community decrying the male leadership of the Church. Claiming that “for centuries, the institutional Church has marginalized women in so many … Read more
The underlying premise of conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat’s recent book, To Change the Church, is that the Catholic Church is conservative because her claims and demands only make sense if there is 1) a core and agreed-upon set of doctrines and 2) a clear link to New Testament teachings and to the early … Read more
I have not written about the recent barrage of accusations regarding the scandal of Catholic priests who could not keep their hands and other things to themselves, and the prelates who did the same, encouraged them, or shuffled them here and there to hide them. I am not a private investigator or a lawyer, so … Read more
Amid the recent revelations of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, there have been calls for substantive actions to prevent future abuse by clergy. While most of these calls have focused on transparency, accountability, punishment of guilty parties, and lay oversight of cases after the fact, there are a few which deal with how to … Read more