St. Gregory’s University just concluded its first bi-annual “Leisure and Labor Conference,” which brings academics and professionals together to reflect on the interplay between the liberal arts and the professions. The dialogue between Martha and Jesus in Chapter 10 of Luke’s Gospel captures the essence of this relationship between labor and leisure. Mary sits at Jesus’s … Read more
Not long ago I lectured to a class of seniors at Catholic University of America on the topic of the UN and the development of international law and human rights. Among the new efforts to develop human rights, I discussed “sexual orientation and gender identity” (SOGI), the hottest of topics anywhere. During the discussion, as … Read more
Man is a rational animal. From a moral standpoint, that means he aspires to act—and often does act—in accordance with principles that join together to form an ideal of life. He’s also social, so his ideals aren’t simply individual. In part that’s because they relate to social functions. What is it to be a proper … Read more
The modern feminist movement has a long history and a sometimes checkered past and present. Some say it began in the Garden of Eden with Eve’s suggestion being taken up by the whimpish Adam. The ancient Greek dramatist, Aristophanes, in his play Lysistrata, exposes the control women could exercise in a male-dominated society. It is … Read more
It was sometime in the late 1970s—or was it the early 1980s? The priest in charge marched us to the school’s lecture theatre where we were soon plunged into darkness as a large screen lit up. This was no Hollywood fare, however, but a film about the Turin Shroud. To this day, I can remember … Read more
As we journeyed through the darkness of Holy Week to the great solemnity of Easter, with the acclamations given to Christ before his humiliating and ignominious death, I was pondering the Holy Father’s recent condemnation of “populism” as “evil.” Certainly, he could not have meant that popularity itself was evil. Christ was popular, for a … Read more
Of course, Fr. Antonio Spadaro, S.J. did not say what appears in the title of this piece, but he may as well have. Back in January, Fr. Spadaro, a close confidant of Pope Francis and the so-called “mouthpiece” of the pope, tweeted: “Theology is not #Mathematics. 2+2 in #Theology can make 5. Because it has … Read more
The Holy Father actually said to the College of Cardinals: “In a matter of such importance it seems right that Catholics desire to follow one single law propounded authoritatively by the Church. So it seems advisable to recommend that for the present no one should arrogate to himself the right to take a stand differing … Read more
Traveling by air these days can be stressful. It is increasingly difficult to go on a trip without some incident happening like the recent tussle on United Airlines Flight 3411. More often, however, flights are being canceled or delayed due to mechanical or weather problems. This can lead to hours of waiting at the gates … Read more
My son and I saw the new Beauty and the Beast. It was lovely, magical, following the 1991 cartoon, almost scene for scene, song for song. This is the story everyone wants to hear: darkness and evil and selfishness transformed by love into light and good and self-surrender. Life and love conquer death and fear. … Read more
On April 18, 2005, two days after he had just celebrated his 78th birthday, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger delivered the homily Pro Eligendo Romano Pontifice to the College of Cardinals gathered at St. Peter’s Basilica, Rome. As Dean of the College of Cardinals, it was Ratzinger’s responsibility to highlight to his brother cardinals some spiritual yardsticks that … Read more
Every year, we are fortunate to hear two accounts in church of the Passion during Holy Week—the first one on Palm Sunday and the second one on Good Friday. The latter account is always from Saint John’s Gospel. On Palm Sunday, we rotate among the Synoptic Gospels according to Cycles A, B, and C. This … Read more
The Founding Fathers envisioned the Supreme Court of the United States as an apolitical branch of government, co-equal to the others but devoid of any partisanship or politicking. Alexander Hamilton wrote that judges in the new American system would have “neither force nor will, but merely judgment.” The question of confirming a justice to the … Read more
I recently took my nine-year-old son, Karol, to the National Gallery of Art here in Washington. I knew that a nine-year-old’s idea of a fun Sunday was not necessarily looking at art, but I thought he needs some exposure to it and we can do it in limited amounts, maybe once a month. Besides, I … Read more
In late October 2016, Jesuit Fr. James Martin received the annual “Bridge Building Award” from New Ways Ministry, a dissident, pro-gay-identity, pro-gay-sex, pro-gay-“marriage” group whose work was long ago condemned by both the Roman Curia and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops. At the award event, Frank DeBernardo, executive director of the group, compared … Read more
In the long march of the Church’s history, stretching all the way back to a certain failed fisherman called Peter—whom Christ himself caught with the bait of eternal life—few occupants of the papal chair have evinced as lofty a level of erudition, existing in happy combination with ardent and uncomplicated piety, as the Bavarian Pope … Read more
Whereas T.S. Eliot wrote that “April is the cruelest month” in The Waste Land (a fact empirically verified for me by living in Alaska for 9 years), I’ve found that, at least in the decade of the 2000s, October sometimes became my crankiest. 2004 and 2008 come to mind. Both involved a significant pre-election immersion … Read more
The Day Christ Died is an unjustly neglected book about the Passion of Our Lord, written in 1957 by the American Catholic journalist Jim Bishop. Coming across a copy of this gem in a thrift store, where I’ve found many a forgotten treasure, I noted that it was first published sixty years ago this May. … Read more
I recently wrote a piece about the civilizational struggle with Islam. In response, a reader asked for some specific practical ways that Catholics could resist Islam. I replied with a short list of steps Church leaders could take: Break off dialogue with Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups such as ISNA and ICNA. Stop lending them legitimacy. Stop … Read more
“The entire population of the region of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them because they were seized with great fear. So he got into a boat and returned.” (Luke 8:37) It is amazing. Our Lord has just freed a man from a legion of demons, a man that presumably these folks had, at one … Read more