The unprecedented message of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI regarding the crisis of the clergy contained a surprising illumination that is so incisive it will probably be ignored for years: All problems connected to Holy Orders are related in some way to the Eucharist. Benedict wrote: Our handling of the Eucharist can only arouse concern… What … Read more
“This is why respect for truth is ultimately inseparable from what we call worship. Truth and cult are inextricably united—one cannot exist without the other, however often history may have separated them.” ∼ Joseph Ratzinger (1982) Liturgical thought today seems to downplay the importance of doctrine while elevating the significance of practice. The harmony of lex orandi … Read more
The Baltimore Catechism reliably provides a catechesis on the Holy Eucharist: “The Holy Eucharist is the Sacrament which contains the body and blood, soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ under the appearances of bread and wine.” Furthermore, “Jesus Christ is present whole and entire in the smallest portion of the Holy Eucharist under the form … Read more
“It’s not going to be long now,” says the doctor, as you stand beside the bed of your loved one. “Shall I send for the head of the Liturgy Committee?” Some years ago, on the island where we live during the summer, the bishop assigned a new priest and told him that his job was … Read more
“Let the children be, do not keep them back from me; the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these.” (Matt. 19-14) Recently in these pages, I wrote about a local traditional Latin Mass parish and a modern parish renewal program called “Rebuilt,” which was developed by a suburban parish outside of Baltimore. I noted … Read more
A week ago, I attended a concert featuring my son’s band. It was a splendid event featuring the hard work of students and their music teachers which I look forward to attending every year as part of my family’s Christmas celebrations. Well, something else caught my attention that night besides the music. In his speech, … Read more
This may sound like the start of a “shaggy-dog” story: So … there are these three Western Canadian bishops at a Catholic youth conference called “One Rock 2.0.” The bishops are prepping for a Town Hall, a “Q and A” session with a tough audience, 620 millennials aged 18-35, and the episcopi are steeling themselves for … Read more
The words of this ancient maxim are akin to the quintessence, the crystalline solid that was thought to move the planets in perfect orbits in pre-modern cosmology: The words are a succinct, nearly perfect encapsulation of the whole of the Catholic (and not only of the Catholic) religion. They name, and tell the relation of, … Read more
Last Sunday I was away from home; this normally means trouble. It means I do not attend Mass at the chapel of Saint Thomas More College, which is where I teach, nor at Northeast Catholic College, which is in the town where we live. It means I must hear Mass, or have Mass drummed into my … Read more
The tragedy of the loss of beauty in liturgy is not something which we should dismiss lightly, for if there is one thing we can glean from Scripture, and from the Church’s two millennia of Tradition, it is that we should offer the very best to God in our worship of him; yet what we … Read more
Despite curbing my online reading, scarcely a day passes without noting some new scandal caused by a theologian, priest, or bishop. It’s true, of course, that small stories from faraway places achieve an immediacy impossible without the web, but, still, the outrages are all too real. I suspect stories come readily to mind: commemorations of … Read more
Postmodern man, says Cardinal Sarah, lives on the “sad drug” of noise, which “sickens yet reassures him.” He “gets drunk” on noise to deny reality, to “anesthetize his own atheism.” He’s hooked up to the “morphine pump” of agitation; his eyes “are sick, intoxicated, they can no longer close.” They’re “red” from the flickering screens … Read more
The story you are about to read is true. The names have been changed to protect the guilty. The innocent don’t need such protection, but there aren’t any innocent people in this tale. Some years ago, I was living in a small, mid-western town populated mostly by people whose livelihood centered on agriculture. It was … Read more
Christian Browne’s excellent critique of how receiving Communion-in-the-hand while standing are practices that might be reconsidered to strengthen American Catholics’ understanding of the Eucharist properly notes that these ideologically driven changes were required in no way by Vatican II or even the Holy See. Let me add three additional Eucharist-related phenomena bedeviling the “American Church” … Read more