Shadows and Light Did Muhammad exist? It is a question that few have thought to ask, or dared to ask. For most of the fourteen hundred years since the prophet of Islam is thought to have walked the earth, almost everyone has taken his existence for granted. After all, his imprint on human history is … Read more
Elderly people often think that some of their recollections are unimportant in the grand scheme of things. With the recent Titanic centenary still vivid this season, there are recorded eyewitness accounts of three priests giving general absolution: Juozas Montvila of Lithuania, hoping to minister to his compatriots who had fled to America from Czarist persecution, … Read more
Diverse commentators, pundits, and cultural critics seem to relish pointing out that Western societies and cultures, including the American, are rapidly sloughing off the remaining trammels and traces of their Christian heritage. These people proclaim that we are living in a “post-Christian” age, a term that fits the post-modern, post-colonial, post-structuralist mould. While Friedrich Nietzsche, … Read more
“Revolution” – it’s a word that conjures up images of winter palaces being stormed and the leveling of Bastilles. But if a true revolutionary is someone who regularly turns conventional thinking upside-down, then one of the world’s most prominent status-quo challengers may well be a quietly-spoken Catholic theologian who turns 85 today. While regularly derided … Read more
Cafeteria Catholics currently believe a myriad of items. Many believe differently from what the Catechism, the Pope, the Bible, or any known Catholic authoritative source tells them. They believe in items that are convenient to believe in and yet are perfectly comfortable to call themselves Catholic. From skipping Mass on Sunday and ignoring the Lenten … Read more
“I grew up in Kansas. When I began my book Render Unto Caesar in 2006, I had in my mind the America I always knew—or thought I knew. But that America, I admit, has been passing for fifty years, and probably longer.” —Charles Chaput, September 2010 The Catholic thinkers, in the past century or so, … Read more
Marxism is a failure, freedom is important, and the U.S. government’s trade-embargo hurts the Cuban people, Pope Benedict XVI boldly proclaimed during a two-day visit to communist-controlled Cuba late last month. Indeed. Despite some speculation that he may sidestep the issue of liberty before his arrival in the island nation, the Holy Father offered blunt … Read more
We consider that a person is justified by faith apart from works of the law. –Rom. 3:28 We have believed in Christ Jesus that we may be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. –Gal. 2:16 In November, 2008, … Read more
If any man be devout and love God, let him enjoy this fair and radiant triumphal feast. If any man be a wise servant, let him enter rejoicing into the joy of his Lord. If any have labored long in fasting, let him now receive his recompense. If any have wrought from the first hour, … Read more
Before I became a priest, or even entered seminary, the Good Friday liturgy was always one of my favorites. After my first experience of the Good Friday service, I rarely missed it. Even in those times when I wasn’t exactly practicing my faith very well, Good Friday seemed to always call me back.
In the Acts of the Apostles (13:26-30), Paul speaks of his Jewish background. To us Jews did God send forth a “message of salvation.” This announcement was not sent to everyone in the beginning. Why not? We know that, in Deuteronomy, the Jews are called “chosen” not because of anything they did on their part … Read more
A lot of people are mad about the new translation of the Mass. For my part, I have always had a phobia of debates about liturgical arcana, which somehow seem to sap the vitality of my liturgical fervor as fast as you can say Summorum Pontificum, and I will not pronounce on the goodness or … Read more
We live in an Age of Endless Numbers. We count everything: batting averages, how many Kindles were sold last week, the average speed of drivers on Highway 64 at 6 a.m., the number of breast cancer patients in Alabama over the age of 50. Very few things in our society remain uncounted. And yet numbers … Read more
As the Plymouth Bay Colony was starting up, the scholar Robert Burton back in England published the philosophical reflection,“Anatomy of Melancholy,” analyzing his own tendency to depression which he attributed to “black bile.” It is not clear whether his death was by hanging, but he certainly made it fashionable for philosophers to be gloomy. Yet … Read more
One of the things I have always found most delightful about the Catholic Church is nuns. Protestants have fearsome and holy women, but they don’t have nuns. There is something feisty and admirable about a nun. Especially a nun with a ruler. How the whining ex Catholics love to whimper about the hatchet faced nuns … Read more
It was March 1936. A series of anti-clerical riots swept through Toledo. Churches were burnt and priests and monks were attacked in the streets. During these disturbances, several Carmelite monks, disguised in lay clothes, sought shelter in the home of the British poet, Roy Campbell, who had moved to the city with his wife, Mary, … Read more
“God if you’re there, we’re here in Washington, come down now,” atheist Comedian Eddie Izzard shouted mockingly during Saturday’s Rally for Reason. “If you’re there, this is a pretty good time to show up. I’m sure folks here would love it.” “He never comes down,” Izzard added with a laugh before launching nearly an hour … Read more
Human imagination cannot conceive the power and pressure that held all the essential elements of the universe together in a piece of matter about the size of a pinhead when the world began. Physicists tend now to date the explosion of that particle to about sixteen billion years ago. Their job is to consider how … Read more
This month Piers Morgan interviewed Kirk Cameron, asking what he would tell his teenage son if the boy were to confess he was gay. Morgan promptly volunteered his own response. “I would say, ‘That’s great son. Just so long as you are happy.” Cameron did better than most in defending his view that marriage can … Read more
If you haven’t heard yet, the New York Times recently published a full-page “advertisement” by the “Freedom From Religion Foundation” (FFRF) viciously attacking the Catholic Church. Even some not typically inclined to rush to the Church’s defense have noted the particularly mean-spirited and bigoted nature of the propaganda piece. What has followed in the wake … Read more