At the European Court of Human Rights two British women are trying to establish their right to wear crosses in public. We have been used to hearing about battles in courts throughout the world concerning the public display of crucifixes (or the Ten Commandments), as well as the wearing of religious symbols in general. The … Read more
A small town in Vermont has recently been ordered to cease its immemorial tradition of opening meetings with a prayer. The order came from a judge who does not live near. A public school in the city where I am writing these words has banners hanging from its gymnasium ceiling, one of which featured a … Read more
The Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that even health plans of religiously affiliated employers must include the coverage of contraception, abortifacient drugs, and sterilization. Hundreds of Catholic hospitals, colleges and universities, and social service organizations will have one of three choices: Cave in and accept what is morally repugnant; Face heavy fines … Read more
“Out of Egypt I called my son.” — Hosea 11:1 In the Gospel of Matthew, the advent of the Messiah is followed by an abrupt departure. Almost immediately after the Magi visit them, the Holy Family takes off forEgyptbecause Joseph has been warned in a dream that King Herod would kill the infant Jesus. The … Read more
Many Crisis readers are concerned at the reports that have begun to emerge regarding Fr. Marcel Guarnizo’s denial of Communion to the alleged lesbian Barbara Johnson and the subsequent loss of his priestly faculties upon the authority of Cardinal Wuerl and communicated through a letter by Bishop Knestout, the Vicar General of the Archdiocese of … Read more
Sinful anger loses its temper, and righteous anger uses it. Our Lord as the Way uses His righteous anger against demagogues, as the Truth against hypocrites, and as the Life against the cruel. His anger is love, rescuing them from their own folly. But He never gets angry at Satan, who is beyond redemption. Christ shouts … Read more
At this moment in history, in the United States of America, invoking the “separation of church and state” may seem an attractive option for those confronting the spectacle of an over-reaching government. Yet holding or defending it is not a defense of Catholic teaching, nor does it have an “honorable history within the Church” as … Read more
Over the soon-to-be seven years of Benedict XVI’s papacy, it’s been instructive to watch the shifting critiques of this pontificate. Leaving aside the usual suspects convinced that Catholicism should become what amounts to yet another liberal-Christian sect fixated with transitory politically-correct causes, the latest appraisal is that “the world” is losing interest in the Catholic … Read more
In March of 1938, when the naïve among his contemporaries still thought they might cut a deal with the National Socialists, Winston Churchill saw his country “descending incontinently, fecklessly, the stairway which leads to a dark gulf.” A gulf beckons today, and no amount of forced optimism or self-conscious jollity will stop the descent to … Read more
The world is spiraling out of control. It has been, in fact, since its pinnacle eight hundred years ago, but today it seems that any minute now, we’ll hurtle off kilter. The HHS Mandate threatens the religious freedom of all people, not just Catholics. Abortion is rampant. Gay marriage was just approved in Maryland (the … Read more
A Loudly-Delivered Homily Recently this video, of a homily given by Father Sammie Maletta of St. John the Evangelist parish in St. John, Indiana, has been making the rounds of the Catholic blogosphere. Give it a listen, if you will. My reaction to this video was: “Thank God for this fine priest.” Examining the reactions of … Read more
The reaction of Catholic leaders to Larry Doyle’s recent satiric piece at HuffPo, “The Jesus-Eating Cult of Rick Santorum,” has been exactly the wrong reaction. We have taken offense, demanded apologies of Arianna Huffington, and asked that we please not be exposed through satire to the virulently-anti Catholic opinions of the Church’s opponents. Doyle’s piece, … Read more
It certainly seems as if we worship the same God. After all, we call God by the same name. Arabic-speaking Christians, including Eastern Catholics such as Maronites and Melkites, use the word “Allah” for the God of the Bible. But are they the same God? The question is not answered by simple linguistic identity, as … Read more
Let’s have Christ our President Let us have him for our King Cast your vote for the Carpenter That you call the Nazarene The only way we can ever beat These crooked politician men Is to run the money changers out of the temple Put the Carpenter in. —Woody Guthrie In his Rick’s Degrees of … Read more
Many are the strange things going on in the Unreal Hotel. In Room 101, a man and woman are lying together, and in more ways than one. In Room 102, it is a man and a man. In Room 103, a fellow named George, who has grown weary of his life, is meeting surreptitiously with … Read more
A year and a half ago, while searching for a recording of Bach’s Matthäus-Passion to share with a friend, I stumbled across a YouTube clip entitled simply: ”St Matthew Passion. No. 1.” Filled with idle musical curiosity, I clicked away, and within moments, realized that I had discovered something extraordinary. This was breathtaking music; grandiose, … Read more
Kenneth Woodward in The Book of Miracles makes a distinction among various types of miracles and their significance. In the multiple branchings-out of Hinduism, miracles are taken as signs of spiritual power as well as compassion for others. Miracles of Hindu gods like Krishna and holy men like Shankara and the “poet saints” consist of … Read more
Our civilization is full of thinkers who have claimed to know the Father without Christ. Likewise, we find those who claim the Son can be known by study or by philosophy. He does not “reveal” anything but a visionary, a carpenter, a zealot, a revolutionary. What Irenaeus tells us is that getting it right is important for our very well-being.
I am disquieted by the way in which the issue of the HHS mandate has largely been framed – not only by the Left, but perhaps more by the Right.
In the vault of modern political oratory is a speech of one senator in the 1960’s quoting George Bernard Shaw: “You see things; and you say,’Why?’ But I dream things that never were; and I say,’Why not?’ “ There are noble dreams, such as those of our nation’s Founding Fathers right up to the last … Read more