 Time traveling to Bethlehem — some thoughts that ought to fill us with humility and joy...
Like many of you, I have been saying the St. Andrew novena this Advent. I've probably said this prayer hundreds of times. And yet, there is something I missed before: I was time traveling to Bethlehem. Because God is outside of time, He knows, of course, every prayer that will ever be uttered, even unto the end of time. We tend to have the point of view that our prayers, works, and sufferings "work" now, and forward into the future.
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This is the essence and importance of the Immaculate Conception...
Every year during Advent, on Dec. 8, we celebrate the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception, one of the most prominent Marian feasts in the Church's liturgical year. This celebration centers on the principle that Our Lady, from the very first moment of her existence, was free from original sin. Whereas the rest of humanity are conceived in a state of sin, she was born without this handicap...
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German Bishops Assess Global Support for Agenda of 'Synodal Way'...
The German bishops' conference unveiled the initial results Wednesday of a study measuring global support for the goals of the country's controversial "synodal way." The study, co-funded by the bishops' conference, is gauging the attitude of Catholics around the world toward the four main themes of the German initiative: power, the priesthood, women in the Church, and sexuality.
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This German bishops-backed website has been pushing some strange, heterodox content lately.....
A quick glance at this week's content on Katholisch.de — the German bishops' conference-backed news website — and you will come across content that effectively parodies today's dissenting German Church as it pushes a radical heterodox agenda through its multi-year Synodal Path that many have warned could lead to schism. Based in Bonn, where the bishops' conference is headquartered, Katholisch.de bills itself as the news and information portal of the Catholic Church in Germany...
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50 years later, we remember Apollo 17, the last time men walked on the Moon...
December's full moon falls Dec. 7. (For those who look forward to a bright moon on Christmas Eve, sorry — at best, it'll be the sliver of a waxing crescent.) Dec. 7 is also the 50th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 17, the last manned space mission to the moon. Eugene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt were the last human beings to walk on the moon. Of the 12 men who strolled the moon, only four are still alive, including Schmitt.
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OSV Editorial: Now is not the time to obfuscate on marriage...
On Aug. 29, 2017, the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention drafted a text to reaffirm, in the wake of the Supreme Court case Obergefell v. Hodges, which legalized same-sex "marriage" nationwide, a biblical understanding of Christian marriage. The preamble to the document the commission produced, known as the Nashville Statement, reads: "By and large the spirit of our age no longer discerns or delights in the beauty of God's design for human life. Man...
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Antonín Dvořák — The Catholic Composer Who Gave Us More Than Music...
Antonín Leopold Dvořak was born on Sept. 8, 1841, in the village of Nelahozeves, near Prague. He was the first of 14 children and was baptized in the village church of St. Andrew. His Catholic faith remained strong throughout his life and was a continual inspiration for his music. Few composers have a been so richly endowed with musical ability as Dvořak. He claimed that he studied "with the birds, flowers, trees, God and myself." His music was recognized for its "heavenly naturalness...
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Does the Pope need an editor?
The pope's interview last month with America, the Jesuit journal, was a textbook example of why the Vatican does not want the pope doing interviews. The pope poked the Russian bear in the nose, gave a convoluted response to why women cannot be priests and even had a muddled response to a question on racism in the United States.
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Tell your daughter she's beautiful.....
How can women come to have a proper perception of their own beauty? I have a suggestion toward a partial answer. A great beginning is that fathers learn to see their daughters' beauty; and then tell them. I think we fathers too easily forget that insistent voices are telling our daughters how to see themselves. Indeed, these voices are fairly screaming. How insistent and confident is our voice, and what exactly are we saying? Here is a matter for careful reflection. It might be more urgent tha...
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God doesn't care about our politics the way you think he does...
What a difference six years and a midterm make. Many Christians I know, who'd been jubilant at the prospect of a Republican red wave on election night, didn't feel that way the next day. The history of midterm elections, the president's low popularity rating, the low state of the economy, the hard progressive views of many Democrats, had led most of the country to believe the Republicans would sweep to victory.
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Are we ready to welcome Him?
When the first proposition to reject God's love -original sin was introduced to our first parents, the appeal of this proposition was its focus on the human nature of Adam and Eve at the expense of supplanting the Divine. Choosing to be overwhelmed by a curiosity and desire to be like God, Adam and Eve proclaimed a willingness to welcome the first act of disobedience-sin, into the world. The progression of the original sin laid the groundwork for the development of a daily battle between good ...
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Pope Francis Issues New Motu Proprio Decreeing Tighter Control of Vatican Funds and Foundations...
Pope Francis issued a decree on Tuesday aimed at improving the financial accountability of funds, foundations, and other legal entities inside the Vatican. In the future, these entities — also known as juridical persons — will be controlled by the bodies such as the Secretariat for the Economy and not just supervised by their respective institutions. The motu proprio is complemented by a law covering entities in the Vatican City State. Both were published Dec. 6 and come into force on Dec. 8...
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Excavations in Turkey highlight the intriguing history of the real St. Nicholas...
Archaeologists believe they have uncovered the location where the sarcophagus of St. Nicholas of Myra (A.D. 270-343) was originally located. Various media were quick to report that the "Tomb of Santa Claus" was discovered, but, in fact, the many and varied resting places of the great bishop and saint have been known for some time, and his remains were translated to Italy more than a thousand years ago.
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Pro-life protests gather in Malta as parliament debates legalizing abortion...
A large picture of an unborn baby was placed outside the office of Malta's prime minister on Sunday as demonstrators called on the government to halt plans to amend the country's strict anti-abortion laws. The protest, the biggest in years, attracted several thousand people including Malta's top Catholic bishop and the leader of the conservative opposition, but was led by a former centre-left president, Marie Louise Coleiro Preca.
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Jolly St. Nick, December lists, and Canada's culture of death...
Today is the Feast of St. Nicholas, which, to my mind, is always when Advent really kicks into high gear, and when I remember that I'd better start obtaining gifts for the people I love. A lot of people tend to remember St. Nicholas for the legend that he punched Arius the heretic during the Council of Nicea. It's probably not true that Jolly Ol' St. Nicholas really walloped Arius, but there's more to the Saint-Who-Became-Santa than the punch that probably wasn't.
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Today in papal history: A pope who was first an antipope, and Eisenhower meets John XXIII...
Today in Papal History marks the date that a future pope - Leo VIII - started his anti-papacy. Yes, you read that right. Leo VIII is indeed the 131st pope of the Catholic Church, but his is an interesting case: before becoming the rightful pontiff, Leo was first an illegitimate one - a pretender to the papal throne. As the story goes, many in those days sought to get Pope John XII out of office - the man...or should we say boy...who as its youngest claimant in history was basically gifte...
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Supreme Court Leans in Favor of a Christian Website Designer's Right to Turn Away Same-Sex Weddings...
The Supreme Court's conservative majority on Monday sounded ready to rule that a Christian website designer has a free-speech right to refuse to work with same-sex couples planning to marry. The justices heard arguments in a Colorado case that posed a conflict between the 1st Amendment rights of a business owner and a state antidiscrimination law that gives customers a right to equal service without regard to their race, religion, gender or sexual orientation.
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Fr. Peter Stravinskas: How to really pursue a Eucharistic Revival...
Jesus Christ is present "body, blood, soul and divinity" in the Eucharist, "so why the lack of belief in that truth? And I suggest that it's because of the way we regard and handle — and manhandle — the Eucharist, so that the signs and symbols of the liturgy are not reinforcing the doctrine," said Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., who wrote an article for The Catholic Thing, titled "What's Really Needed for a 'Eucharistic Revival.'"
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Catholic Student Center in Nebraska Receives Shooting Threat, Signed 'Jane's Revenge'...
A Catholic campus ministry center at the University of Nebraska received a death threat Saturday morning in a note signed, "Jane's Revenge," a calling card used by pro-abortion activists. "If our right to abortion in Bellevue is taken away due to the attempt to pass an abortion ban and it gets passed[,] we will shoot up your Newman center with our new AR14 rifles. Sincerely, Jane's Revenge," the note, which was posted online, says. The note was addressed to Father Dan Andrews, pastor...
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Malta is set to legalize abortion soon. President George Vella, who is also a pro-life physician, says he'll quit if it happens.....
We need more leaders like George Vella, current president of Malta. The small jewel of an island nation, in the middle of the Mediterranean, with one of the most pleasant climates and locales on earth. Besides its geographic beauty, Malta is also spiritually rich, steeped in Catholic tradition and history, and still, until recently, one of the few places left on earth where the Faith was still lived in a communal, integral way, in that harmony between the Church and the State, for which Pope Leo
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The mighty Mississippi was once named 'River of the Immaculate Conception' — here's why...
"Immaculate" is not a word most people would use to describe the Mississippi River's famously muddy waters. But Father Jacques Marquette was not most people. The Jesuit explorer, who came from France as a missionary to Canada in 1666, was one of the first Europeans to name the Mississippi, which he explored and mapped with his companion Louis Joliet beginning in 1673. And the name he gave to this vital artery of North America was "The River of the Immaculate Conception."
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The Pillar's Starting Seven for December 5, 2022...
Malta's bishops have expressed "profound concern" over a bill that would permit abortion. Jesuit artist Fr. Marko Ivan Rupnik reportedly continues to face "precautionary" restrictions on his ministry after the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith closed a case against him in October. The beatification cause of Neocatechumenal Way co-founder Carmen Hernandez has officially opened. St. John Paul II's brother Edmund Wojtyła could be a candidate for beatification under t...
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The allegory of the Jordan River...
Preceding Jesus' public ministry, St. John the Baptist appeared preaching in the Judean wilderness. People from Jerusalem, all Judea, and the Jordan River region were going out to see him. John said, "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" The crowds regarded him as a prophet and were being baptized by him as they acknowledged their sins. Like a bath which cleanses one's outer self of dirt and odor, John's baptism was an appeal to God for an inner self cleansed from sin...
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Biden administration waives Supreme Court review in key transgender fight...
For the last six years, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has pushed a controversial "transgender mandate," which threatens religious doctors and hospitals with multimillion dollar penalties unless they perform gender transitions in violation of their conscience and medical judgment. When those doctors fought back—winning a major victory in federal appeals court in August—the fight appeared poised to head to the Supreme Court. But on Friday, the Biden administration gave u...
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New scientific study says these three things are the secret to waking up alert and refreshed...
Do you feel groggy until you've had your morning joe? Do you battle sleepiness throughout the workday? You're not alone. Many people struggle with morning alertness, but a new study demonstrates that awaking refreshed each day is not just something a lucky few are born with. Scientists at the University of California, Berkeley, have discovered that you can wake up each morning without feeling sluggish by paying attention to three key factors: sleep, exercise and breakfast.
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The Church is a prophet who is preparing the world for the Second Coming of Christ...
The Second Sunday of Advent usually features the Ministry of St. John the Baptist. He was the Prophet who fulfilled the Office of Elijah of whom it was said: See, I will send the prophet Elijah to you before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes. He will turn the hearts of the fathers to their children, and the hearts of the children to their fathers; or else I will come and strike the land with total destruction.
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Church and state in Ukraine, 'un-baptisms' in Belgium, and bread in France...
Our top stories this week both come from Ukraine via our correspondent, Anatolii Babynskyi. Yesterday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced a coming major crackdown on the operation of Moscow-affiliated Orthodox churches in the country. For weeks, Ukrainian intelligence services have been staging raids on monasteries, rectories, and chanceries belonging to the Ukrainian Orthodox Church of the Moscow Patriarchate (UOC-MP). The government claims to have found reams of Russian propagand
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Bishop Robert Barron to give 2023 commencement address at Hillsdale College...
Bishop Robert Barron will be the commencement speaker for the class of 2023, according to an email announcement from Provost Christopher VanOrman's office Wednesday. "Hillsdale is a Christian college, nonsectarian since its founding," College President Larry Arnn said. "It holds firmly to the Christian teachings of time immemorial. Bishop Barron is a great teacher and defender of those truths. It is an honor and blessing to have him." Barron is the founder of Word on Fire Catholic Mini...
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Former Anglican minister Gavin Ashenden says he's changed his mind about seeking ordination as a Catholic priest...
How might St Paul, the Archduke Ferdinand and the Catholic Church come together in a story set at the end of 2022? They might offer themselves as useful interpretative devices as the story of what is happening in the Church in the West today continues to unravel. Some commentators who have been following my journey and reading my work have taken an interest in the fact that I have withdrawn my application to be ordained as a priest in the Catholic Church, and wondered why. The dynamics that drov
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Everything is (not) broken...
Every so often an article appears that demands to be shared. So I'm doing that here. If you do nothing else in the coming week, read N.S. Lyons's recent essay on J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, and technocracy at his Substack site, The Upheaval. It's worth every minute of your time. And note that the name "Lyons" is a pseudonym. In real life, the author is an analyst working in the U.S. foreign policy community. The Upheaval is not a religious site; it covers a wide range of global topics....
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Unforgiveness is serving time for someone else's crime...
To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that prisoner was you. While true forgiveness is a process and a decision, there are many things forgiveness is not. We'll learn how to keep your boundaries while forgiving someone who isn't sorry. As you make room in your heart and mind for Jesus this Advent, enjoy this 4-week video series and small group guide...
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Murder of Louisiana Priest and Assistant Confirmed, Believed to Be Random Attack...
Police have confirmed the identities of both a retired Catholic priest and pastoral assistant whose bodies were discovered in Covington, Louisiana on Monday. A suspect is in custody in connection with their deaths and the theft of the assistant's car. Police believe the crime to be random. Fr. Otis Young, a retired priest at St. Peter Catholic Church, and pastoral assistant Ruth Prats were reported missing on Sunday.
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Conservatives have a women problem, and it's not going to go away on its own...
There has been a lot of chatter since the midterms about how women voted, breaking significantly toward the Democratic Party. Although the issue isn't new, it has become the elephant in the electoral room. Conservatives can tackle it by understanding the roots that buttress women's votes instead of hoping it will go away on its own. Much of what informs women's votes is feminism, which has been an earnest effort by millions for over two centuries now to help improve the lives of women. Wha...
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Thy will be done, but why?
There is a solemn anticipation, a stillness of the day and night where all humanity if they so choose, await the coming of a Savior. Our human attitude begins its preparation to embrace a Divine attitude, which proposes to bring sanctification and salvation through the birth of the Incarnate Word. For the Divine attitude to take form, we are called to enter a story that introduces us to our origin as created human beings in the image and likeness of God.
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The Vatican is buzzing with conspiracy theories as hackers take down the Pope's website...
It is no secret that Pope Francis has been ruffling feathers on the global stage in recent weeks. He has angered Russia, Ukraine and China over his comments in the last month alone. So when the Vatican's official website went dark on Wednesday, it was hard to determine just which of the pope's enemies might be behind it. While the Vatican spokesperson initially said the site was undergoing maintenance and technical difficulties, he finally admitted that the Holy See had been hacked.
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5 Takeaways From Pope Francis' Latest Interview...
"Polarization is not Catholic," the Holy Father said in response to a question about divisive politics. "A Catholic cannot think either-or (aut-aut) and reduce everything to polarization. The essence of what is Catholic is both-and (et-et). The Catholic unites the good and the not-so-good. There is only one people of God. When there is polarization, a divisive mentality arises, which privileges some and leaves others behind. The Catholic always harmonizes differences."
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Who was Isaiah, and what does his message mean for us?
During Advent, we read quite a bit from the Prophet Isaiah. Therefore, for my own meditation and yours, I offer the following reflection on Isaiah, the man and his message. Each of the issues with which he dealt is still with us, even though we live in a far more secular world than he could have imagined. Let's consider key elements of his life, his struggle, and his message.
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Your new life in Christ means divinization, and your final goal is to love as God loves.....
"We have been placed on earth to learn to love in the school of Jesus," writes Fr. Jacques Philippe in Interior Freedom. "Learning to love is extremely simple: it means learning to give freely and receive freely. But this simple lesson also is very hard for us to learn, because of sin." In that short paragraph, Philippe sums up my entire Catholic testimony. I'd grown up in faith, but I lost my way in college. I wanted Jesus, the Jesus of the Gospels, but I couldn't find him. An abstr...
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Recognize the advantages you may have (and the compassion that should follow)...
I heard the same thing from my own father as Nick Carraway did from his, and John Quincy Adams heard from his mother. Not that I listened very well when I was young. Nick Carraway is the narrator of F. Scott Fitzgerald's novel "The Great Gatsby." At the beginning of the book, he remembers his father telling him, "Whenever you feel like criticizing any one, just remember that all the people in this world haven't had the advantages that you've had." This will apply to some people mor...
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This Christmas, introduce your family to Servant of God Julia Greeley (and be prepared for miracles)...
By all odds, the life of Julia Greeley should have been lost to history. Born into slavery in the 1840s, she came into the world with no last name and few prospects, and by all accounts, was poor all her life. Yet today she qualifies as a true heroic figure — the kind of real-life hero that parents would be eager to introduce to their kids. Now, the accomplished essayist and writer of children's books, Maura Roan McKeegan, has done just that...
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Mysterious 'large object' detected near Titanic wreck finally identified...
An unexpected sonar "blip" first detected in 1998 near the wreck of the Titanic has finally been identified. "We didn't know what we would discover," veteran explorer PH Nargeolet, who first spotted the blip, said in a news release. "On the sonar, this could have been any number of things including the potential of it being another shipwreck. I've been seeking the chance to explore this large object that appeared on sonar so long ago."
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There isn't anything else quite like it. Marriage stands out in all of creation.....
It is the very archetype of the astounding reality called 'complementarity': where two are different for the sake of one shared good. A common good. Sometimes, even often, it can feel as though something is simply wrong: Why are the differences between man and woman—and the reasons and implications of the differences—so hard to discern? Why are they so hard to live out? Why do they seem to be unfair, at least sometimes? Isn't the difference between man and woman commonly the very thing...
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Senate Passes 'Same-Sex Marriage' Bill, Sending it Back to the House...
The U.S. Senate voted Tuesday evening to pass the Respect for Marriage Act (RFMA), sending the bill back to the House for a final vote before it reaches the president's desk. The bill, which would repeal the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and provide for federal recognition of same-sex marriages, has drawn criticism from Catholic leaders for not providing strong enough legal protections for individuals who believe marriage to be between one man and one woman, as taught by the Catholic Chu...
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Vatican Website Taken Down by Suspected Hacker Attack...
The official Vatican website was taken offline on Wednesday following an apparent hacking attack, the Holy See said. "Technical investigations are ongoing due to abnormal attempts to access the site," Vatican spokesman Matteo Bruni said, without giving any further information. The suspected hack came a day after Moscow criticised Pope Francis's latest condemnation of Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
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Why Émile Zola was so frightened of Our Lady of Lourdes.....
I'm not a fan of Émile Zola (1840-1902), the French novelist who is famous for his dissembling, unrestrained animus toward the Catholic Church. He was a contemporary of St. Bernadette of Lourdes and he had many opportunities to speak the truth and honestly report on what he witnessed at Lourdes — but instead, he took the cowardly way out. On Dec. 8, 1854, Pope Pius IX proclaimed the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in his bull...
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The Vatican, China, and the 'spirit of dialogue'...
Well that didn't take long, did it? In October the Vatican renewed an accord with Beijing governing the appointment of new Chinese Catholic bishops. Barely over one month later, China violated the accord. But wait. Was it actually a violation? Although a formal statement from the Holy See was strongly worded, it only expresses "surprise and regret" at the Chinese move...
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Confession and the Art of Boiler Maintenance...
Jesus alone redeems and saves through the Cross and Resurrection, mediated by Church teaching through the Ten Commandments and the Sacraments. A Catholic church should be an oasis of orthodoxy, fidelity, and sanity. People should fill every Catholic pew, yet inactive Catholics as a group outnumber large Protestant denominations. So let's make this appeal to our young people: teenagers and young adults. Do you realize how good you have it?
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Becciu Meets With Pope Francis to 'Clarify' Secret Recording Amid Mounting Scandals...
Cardinal Angelo Becciu met with Pope Francis Saturday evening, two days after prosecutors filed new evidence against the cardinal, which shows that Becciu secretly recorded the pope discussing state secrets, and allegedly conspired with members of his family to embezzle Church funds. Becciu told reporters that over the weekend he had been assured by Pope Francis he could continue attending public events as a cardinal, after a "cordial" conversation with the pope, in which Becciu offered the ...
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Exclusive America Magazine interview: Pope Francis denounces polarization, talks women's ordination, the U.S. bishops and more...
On Nov. 22, 2022, five representatives of America Media interviewed Pope Francis at his residence at Santa Marta at the Vatican. Matt Malone, S.J., the departing editor in chief of America, was joined by Sam Sawyer, S.J., the incoming editor in chief; executive editor Kerry Weber; Gerard O'Connell, America's Vatican correspondent; and Gloria Purvis, host of "The Gloria Purvis Podcast." They discussed a wide range of topics with the pope, including polarization in the U.S. church, racism,...
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Greg Baylor: How the 'Respect for Marriage Act' targets the religious liberty of Catholics...
The Respect for Marriage Act "poses a pretty significant risk to religious Americans, both individuals and organizations. Like the Equality Act, it hopes to cement into federal law the idea that marriage is not the institution, defined by God, consisting of the union of one man and one woman. It goes, obviously, far beyond that...The first thing it does is to repeal the Defense of Marriage Act that was passed by huge bipartisan majorities and signed by Pres. Clinton in the 1990s. It also imposes
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Amy Coney Barrett is not a threat to pluralism...
Passing conversations and investments in relationships can go a long way. Our polarized, social-media culture fights against these incredibly human things, but we can fight back. I was just in the Dallas area, taking an Uber to have lunch with a friend from Tyler. On the way back, somehow, I wound up talking about some of the most controversial topics with my Uber driver. Abortion came up early and often. But also, religion. Turned out my driver was raised Catholic...
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What I learned when I suffered a heart attack in the middle of Holy Mass...
The fact that I had a heart attack is nothing extraordinary. People have heart attacks all the time - over 800,000 in the U.S. every year. What makes my 2021 heart attack remarkable is the circumstances surrounding it. On Ash Wednesday that year, I went away on a 3-day silent retreat with a friend. I fast during Lent and find it helpful to get started at a place with Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration and no food temptations. While praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament, I often pray using sym...
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A Recipe for Readiness — A Homily for the First Sunday of Advent...
The first weeks of Advent focus more on the Lord's second coming in glory than on His first coming at Bethlehem. The gospel clearly states that we must always be prepared, for at an hour we do not expect, the Son of Man will come. "Ready" is the key word, but how should we be ready? The second reading from today's Mass (Romans 13:11-14) gives us a basic recipe for readiness. We can distinguish five fundamental instructions in Paul's recipe.
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Ready for Christ's coming? Then and now.....
Our season of Advent has now begun — a season of Christian preparation. Throughout Advent, we the Church are getting ready in two different respects: we are preparing to celebrate and commemorate the historical birth of Christ at Christmas and, at the same time, we are preparing for the day Jesus will return to this world in unveiled glory. In today's Gospel, Jesus recalls the story of the days of Noah's Ark, in which a few were prepared for the flood and saved while most were unprepared a...
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Both Advent and the Holy Eucharist are about not just your desire for God, but God's much greater desire for you...
The First Sunday of Advent is ecclesiastical New Year's Day. It is a fitting occasion to make resolutions to grow in the spiritual life, as each time we have the privilege to retrace Christ's life in the liturgical cycle ought to be, thanks to another year's experience, a time to align ourselves more faithfully to him whom we follow through time into eternity. This Advent, the U.S. bishops have done us all a favor by placing before us a collective resolution: to grow in Eucharistic knowled...
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Would you have believed Noah? Will you believe Jesus now?
Would you believe Noah if he were building his ark right now in your neighborhood? Would you believe Jesus Christ himself if he said you need an ark of your own right now? That's the question the Church puts to us in the First Sunday of Advent, Year A, because, before we can look forward to the arrival of the Baby Jesus, we need to wake up to the Second Coming of Jesus the Judge. We are living in the time of Noah right now, says Jesus.
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Why has a Hong Kong court fined Cardinal Zen?
Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun was convicted and fined by a Hong Kong court on Friday for failing to officially register a fund helping pro-democracy protesters as a society. The 90-year-old former Bishop of Hong Kong was found guilty alongside five other people connected with the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Fund and fined 4,000 Hong Kong dollars ($512) at the end of a trial that opened in September.
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Why serve a world that hates you? A meditation on a teaching of St Cyprian's...
As we wrap up November and the traditional meditation we make on the four last things (death, judgement, heaven and hell), A classic meditation of St. Cyprian comes to us in the Office of Readings of the Liturgy of the Hours. It is a meditation on a fundamental human struggle to be free of undue attachment to this world and to truly have God, and the things waiting for us in heaven, as our highest priority. It is amazing how much loyalty and sweat-equity we give to a world that hates us. Whateve
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Ordinary Means for an Extraordinary Holiday Season...
Serious issues can call for serious measures. But at the same time, even the most challenging issues call for an 'ordinary' response. This is consoling and encouraging. We might see it this way. The loss of the ordinary in human life has led to serious problems. Therefore, the restoring of the ordinary can address these same problems. And can have extraordinary fruits. David Jones (English, 1895-1974) was a painter, poet, and commentator on human life and culture. He was convinced that a cen...
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Hong Kong Court Convicts Cardinal Zen and 5 Other Democracy Advocates...
Cardinal Joseph Zen and five others were found guilty on Friday of failing to register a fund that helped pay for the legal fees and medical treatments of Hong Kong pro-democracy protesters. The 90-year-old cardinal and former bishop of Hong Kong was fined about $500 (HK$4,000). Each of the other trustees of the now-defunct 612 Humanitarian Relief Fund was fined the same amount. Cardinal Zen told reporters after the verdict on Nov. 25: "Although I'm a religious figure, I hope this [case] won...
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Thanksgiving Zen, an odd duck bishop, and a papal wiretap...
I confess that what I want most from this holiday every year is a very specifically defined "perfect meal" with my family. For me, that means my immediate family, with more or less the entire day spent gathered around a smoker tending to a whole turkey, pork belly burnt ends, and several pounds of beef. If that sounds like overkill for food, bear in mind that my "immediate family" runs to 30 people with spouses and children. This year, the table actually got a bit bigger still, with suit...
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The top 10 reasons to skip Black Friday shopping...
In case you did not know, Walmart started its "Black Friday" sales on Monday, Nov. 21. Target's started the day before that, last Sunday. Amazon's "Early Black Friday" sales started days ago. And likewise for other retailers. If you didn't go to stores the last couple of days, when things were quiet, but you line up with a crowd on Friday morning, you'll look like a fool.
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Bishop Rick Stika, Diocese of Knoxville to Face Vatican-Ordered Apostolic Visitation Next Week...
A Vatican-ordered apostolic visitation will be conducted in the Diocese of Knoxville next week, several sources close to the diocese told The Pillar. Sources told The Pillar Friday that Bishops Barry Knestout of Richmond and Michael Burbidge of Arlington have been directed to visit with priests, diocesan officials, and lay Catholics over several days, amid ongoing concern over the leadership of Bishop Rick Stika.
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Dominican Theologian to German Bishop Bätzing: Support for 'Gay Agenda' Is 'Modernist Heresy'...
Father Nelson Medina, a Dominican priest who holds a doctorate in fundamental theology, has harshly criticized the president of the German Bishops' Conference, Bishop Georg Bätzing, who persists in supporting the "gay agenda." Father Medina, a native of Colombia, is an influencer in the Spanish-speaking world, with a presence on Twitter, YouTube and TikTok. He has 63,000 followers on Twitter and 442,000 subscribers on YouTube.
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The Terror of Tenderness: Kindness, American style, detached from the Man on the Cross, has turned sour and sickly.....
"Tenderness," said Flannery O'Connor, when it is cut off from the person of Christ, "is wrapped in theory. When tenderness is detached from the source of tenderness, its logical outcome is terror. It ends in forced labor camps and in the fumes of the gas chamber." Surely, tender Americans who shrug Jesus away, with His immeasurable mercy and His immovable assertion of the truth, will never fall into the ghastly hygiene of the Germans who murdered hundreds of Jews at a time by Zyklon ga...
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Cardinal Becciu Loses Lawsuit Alleging His Reputation for Shadiness Thwarted His Ambitions to Become Pope...
An Italian court has dismissed a lawsuit filed by Cardinal Angelo Becciu which alleged that unfavorable media coverage cost him his chance to be pope. After recent legal setbacks in two lawsuits, the cardinal is ordered to pay thousands in damages and court costs. Italian journalists reported Wednesday that Becciu's lawsuit against Italian newsmagazine L'Espresso has been dismissed in a civil court of Sanssari, in Sardinia. A judge ordered the cardinal to pay the magazine's legal costs. Be...
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Cardinal Müller compares 'pagan' German bishops to WWII-era German Christians who sold out to the Nazis...
I sat next to Cardinal Gerhard Müller at a dinner this past summer. The man is a mountain. Here's part of what the big German told a Catholic publication about the crazypants theological liberalism forwarded by the German Catholic bishops in defiance of Catholic tradition and Vatican authority. To underscore the fury of Cardinal Müller's condemnation of his fellow German prelates, you should know that the Barmen Theological Declaration was a bombshell document authored by Protestants against t...
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St. Cecilia's gym, the pilgrim Church, and the news...
There's a lot to say about St. Cecilia, but I'd like to tell you about her basketball gym, on Detroit's west side. In the summer of 1967, a riot spread across urban Detroit, leaving 43 people dead, more than 7,000 arrested, and hundreds of buildings - entire neighborhoods, nearly - destroyed by fire. The riots exploded after decades of housing, policing, employment, and educational discrimination in Detroit. They were set off on a hot summer night in late July, after police raided an unlic...
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War Dispatches from the Incredible Shrinking Man and the Good Thief...
We spend much of our lives avoiding conflict if we can, a noble aspiration. We settle family disputes, avoid war, and hope for reconciliation within and among nations. The manic-depressive election cycles drive us crazy. Pharmaceutical companies promise to eliminate pain and extend our lives. Are we hard-wired for perpetual turmoil? Or is there a cure for our restlessness? Perhaps an old sci-fi film will help us begin to place human conflict into perspective. In the 1957 film The Incredible Shri
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Here's why Father James Schall's 'Another Sort of Learning' is a minor classic...
More a manual on how to become the lifelong learner that many educational institutions claim they want their students to become than a critical work on the great books themselves, James Schall's minor classic Another Sort of Learning is a series of essays that prove a stirring if whimsical apologia for the intellectual life. Sage and puckish in turns, Schall is an amiable guide, leading the reader to think first about why one should set out on an intellectual journey seeking the highest things...
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Religious liberty: A bad political tactic?
It concerns me that we seem so often tempted by the US Constitution to try to protect ourselves against patent injustice by invoking the claims of religious liberty. In his recent post on the Respect for Marriage Act, A Congressional assault on religious freedom, Phil Lawler cited and concurred with Cardinal Timothy Dolan's statement that, as written, it appears that the Act will be interpreted to trump the religious liberty of those whose religions hold that marriage can only be a union betwe...
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Pope Francis Removes Caritas Internationalis Leaders, Appoints Temporary Administrator...
Pope Francis on Tuesday removed the entire leadership of an international confederation of charities and appointed a temporary administrator to improve the organization's management. Pope Francis issued a decree Nov. 22 appointing Pier Francesco Pinelli, an Italian management consultant, as temporary administrator of Caritas Internationalis (CI). With the same ordinance, the Pope said the positions of the Catholic confederation's leadership are to cease immediately. This decision includes Ca...
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The New Old Movie Review: 'The Glenn Miller Story' (1954)...
Many of Jimmy Stewart's movies are widely known and loved for plenty of good reasons. For millions of people, It's A Wonderful Life, Mr. Smith Goes to Washington and Harvey are favorite viewing. But there's another Jimmy Stewart movie you may have missed. It's a rags-to-riches musical called The Glenn Miller Story. When the movie opens, we see Glenn buying back his trombone from a pawn shop, and we get the idea that he has hocked it several times before. Glenn is a trombonist by professi...
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Amid the highs and lows of the USCCB assembly, an unexpected lesson...
Outgoing U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops president Archbishop Jose H. Gomez of Los Angeles had a few good lines in his final address to that body, which contained a call to holiness, an observation that "we live in a noisy, distracted media culture" where "traditional norms and values are being tested," and he made a plea for a Church unified through the Holy Eucharist, which "makes us one" to "raise up saints." Those were not bad words at all, of course, but they're also ...
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Dr. Kevin Vost: Taking care of your body for health and holiness...
Citing the body as a temple of the Holy Spirit, "It is a call to properly care for our bodies," said Dr. Kevin Vost, Psy.D., a professor and author whose many books include, "You Are That Temple! A Catholic Guide to Health and Holiness" (Sophia Institute Press). "We're not talking about just the capacity that you can run miles or lift some huge weight, but just that we're properly maintaining our bodies, trying to minimize the chances of getting any diseases that are going to slow us down. So th
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