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 2009 Register interview: Ennio Morricone (1928-2020) reflects on his career and the Catholic faith...
Ennio Morricone is considered by many to be one of Hollywood's finest film score composers. In a career spanning nearly 50 years, he has written around 450 unique, stirring and atmospheric soundtracks for some of the world's most memorable films. They include the Clint Eastwood spaghetti Westerns of the 1960s, such as The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly and A Fistful of Dollars; the memorable score for The Mission...
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An insight on hope from St. Augustine...
The word "hope" in modern English has lost much of the vigor assigned to what we call the theological virtue of Hope. In English hope often means merely a vague wish, as in, "I hope it doesn't rain." But the theological virtue of Hope (which I capitalize to distinguish it from worldly hope) is more vigorously defined as the confident expectation of God's help in attaining eternal salvation. Notice therefore it is no mere wish, it is a confident expectation based on God's promises a...
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Navy bans personnel from attending church...
For the tens of millions of Americans of faith who worship together regularly, the onset of COVID-19 has been a spiritual tragedy. Houses of worship of every faith and denomination have been emptied by government fiat.
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How Alexander Hamilton defended the rights of Catholics in a young America...
Alexander Hamilton, the founding father of the moment thanks to the hit musical based on his life, is generally not associated with the cause of religious freedom in the United States. Among Hamilton's contemporaries, that honor is usually reserved for one of his great rivals, Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. But it was Hamilton who vigorously defended the political rights of Catholics in New York...
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Stop yoking around — A homily for the 14th Sunday of the Year...
We in the West live in a place and at a time in which almost every burden of manual labor has been eliminated. Not only that, but creature comforts abound. Everything from air conditioning to hair conditioning, from fast food to high speed internet, from to indoor plumbing to outdoor grilling, from instant computer downloads to instant coffee machines...
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'God bless America'...
Pope John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis each made apostolic visitations to the United States during the course of their pontificates. As the United States celebrates Independence Day, CNA remembers words to America from each of those popes
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The angels have our backs...
Angels are real — a vast variety of spirits who are more active in our lives than we might know. We should be mindful of them, particularly our guardian angels, and have a personal relationship with them. We should pray to them, speak to them whenever we think of them - and they will seek our attention if we but pay attention — whether or not we are in need. For they want to be with us in weal or in woe...
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This Sunday, Jesus offers rest — if you are “little”...
This Sunday's Gospel (the 14th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year A) includes some of the most consoling words in Scripture. "Come to me, all you who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest." Anyone who has had a relationship with Jesus Christ knows exactly what that means. The greatest feeling in the world is not any kind of bodily pleasure, but the supernatural rest of an encounter with Jesus Christ, especially in the sacraments of confession and the Eucharist.
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A warning from the Prophet Amos explains a lot of our current decline...
Continuing this small series on the decline of culture, a word from the Prophet Amos in today's reading paints a brief picture of what happens when we a nation demand that the Word of God be banished from it hearing. The picture is not complete and may need a bit of adjustment to fit our times but the basic parameters are clear. Let's look at an excerpt from the reading and seek to apply it...
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'Soft despotism' of anti-Catholicism on the rise, USCCB religious liberty chairman warns ...
Archbishop Wenski cited a new wave of religious intolerance pointing to laws forbidding public funding of religious schools—overruled by the Supreme Court this week—but also in the HHS contraceptive mandate case of the Little Sisters of the Poor, and 21 year-old Jack Denton, who was removed from his student government position at Florida State University for defending Church teaching.
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What kind of fear do you have — the right kind, or the wrong kind?
The world in which we live is filled with dangers. Some come from nature: floods, famines, earthquakes, plagues, and so forth. There are also dangers in terms of our finances, our reputation, and our physical safety from attack. Of such things we are often afraid, but Jesus said, "Why are you terrified, O you of little faith?" Yes, the world is dangerous, but at some point, we have to put on our "big-boy pants" and go out there and live our lives anyway. The worst thing this world can do...
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“For God's sake, stop demonizing the NYPD,” says Cardinal Dolan...
Whenever I go back home to Missouri, family and friends ask me, "What do you like most about New York?" The list is lengthy, I reply. Saint Patrick's Cathedral is up there, of course, and nothing beats that magical feel of Manhattan around Christmastime. But near the top would be the men and women of the New York Police Department.
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What ESPN's Lance Armstrong documentary taught me about Confession...
During this time of quarantine, one of the biggest examples of how much things have changed has been the disappearance of professional sports. However, ESPN has been broadcasting a series of spectacular documentaries on Sunday evenings. I'm not an absolute sports nut, but something about the combination of professional athletes, especially ones at the absolute top of their game...
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Facing scandal and debt, Pope Francis shifts into high gear on financial reform...
Maybe there's no single blueprint for reform, but one time-honored propeller for change often is the intersection of scandal and necessity. That certainly seems to be the case in Pope Francis's Vatican with regard to finances, where at no time since 2013-14 have reform moves been rolling out so fast and furious as right now. The difference is that seven years ago, the flurry of activity was mostly about new laws and structures...
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'My Brother, Benedict XVI' — A rare interview with Msgr. Georg Ratzinger...
On the eve of Pope Benedict XVI's historic 2008 visit to the United States, Register correspondent Robert Rauhut spoke with Benedict's brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who died July 1, 2020. This exclusive interview originally ran as a two-part series at the Register — "When Your Little Brother Is the Pope" (April 15, 2008) and "My Brother, the Pope" (May 6, 2008). Both parts are presented here in their entirety.
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Hunger and hallucinations — How the stages of starvation describe the decaying West...
Physical hunger is a serious problem; We are obliged to assist the starving and malnourished. But even more prevalent these days is spiritual hunger, if not outright starvation. As is the case with physical hunger, the source of spiritual hunger is not God, who has given us abundant grace and truth; it is we who are the source. It is a strange starvation to be sure, for it is largely self-inflicted. Further, it seems to be at an advanced stage.
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On Canada Day, here are 4 kinds of inspiration we can take from some of Canada's great saints...
Today is Canada Day, so it's a perfect time to look to and learn from some of the great holy men and women who were either native to the country or who significantly impacted the Catholic faith in Canada and all of the Americas. While some names may be more familiar than others, they all showed amazing faith and heroic virtue as they met the challenges of their day ... just as we are called to do.
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9 book recommendations for the summer of our discontent...
These past few months, I expect many folks have found themselves resorting to the page and the lamp more often; may that literary trend continue long after our public health circumstances change! Since plague time began, I've found the following books reassuring, challenging, illuminating, and in some cases just plain fun: which is to say, apt reading in, and for, this troubled moment.
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San Diego de Alcalá, St. Junípero Serra's first mission in California...
In early March, my husband Mark and I visited Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala in San Diego, the first of 21 Catholic missions founded in California. It was established July 16, 1769 by the Spanish Franciscan friar, St. Junípero Serra (1713-84). During our visit, the coronavirus had not yet spread throughout the country, so life still continued as usual...
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Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, brother of Benedict XVI, dies at 96...
The brother of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, died on Wednesday at the age of 96, the diocese of Regensburg has confirmed. Benedict XVI visited his brother in Regensburg last month after hearing he was seriously ill, and stayed in the diocese for four days during which the two brothers celebrated Mass together on the Feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.
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Pro: Coronavirus contact tracing...
Let's examine both sides. First of all, this tracing is minimally burdensome. The only definite cost is that your phone battery will drain slightly faster. There is a slight issue of privacy but revealing info via hacking is unlikely and your phone already sends way more info to Google or Apple. Secondly, it seems like this is unlikely to protect you as it just informs when someone has been close to another with COVID...
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St. Lawrence of Brindisi explains how the Church is like Noah's Ark, with clean and unclean animals...
The Church, accordingly, is called holy as if that were its title and epithet, not because all its members are holy and only the chosen of God and no sinners can be found in it, as many of the new sects and dogmatists like to pretend, but because true holiness of life and doctrine can be found only in the Church. In the Church of God not all Christians are holy and righteous and, in fact, many are despicable sinners. Yet if not all are good, neither are all bad.
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How civilizations rise and fall in 8 stages...
In yesterday's post we examined the danger of marginalizing God and how the Lord warns that such a thing is a civilization killer. In today's post we ponder a more sociological examination of how cultures and civilizations go through cycles. Over time, many civilizations and cultures have risen and then fallen. We who live in painful times like these do well to recall these truths...
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Flannery O'Connor didn't care if you liked her work...
Flannery O'Connor once received a letter from a college professor asking her, on behalf of his students, to intervene in their interpretative conundrum over her now-canonic short story "A Good Man is Hard to Find." Most readers of O'Connor will know this story, so I will briefly sketch it: Essentially, the professor and students were convinced that the second half of the story, following the car crash, in which the family meets the Misfit and his gang, must be a dream conjured by Bailey,...
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Supreme Court rejects Montana 'Blaine Amendment,' says public funding for religious schools is constitutional...
The Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that the Montana state constitution's bar on public funding of religious institutions violates the First Amendment. The U.S. constitution "condemns discrimination against religious schools and the families whose children attend them," Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in the opinion of the court in Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue. Religious schools must have coequal access to public aid programs with secular private schools, Roberts wrote.
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I just had an odd experience at Confession. But, you know what? It was totally worth it.....
"I can't hear you!" So said the priest to whom I had just poured out my heart and soul in confession. It was the first days of an open church at a prominent shrine on the East Coast. A friend — a Sister of Life — and I had waited in line, got our temperatures checked, gave our names and numbers and went through multiple checkpoints stating our reasons for being in the church: confession! Then I had to negotiate a bit to pray in an actual pew...
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New 'ecclesial conference' established for Amazon region...
Answering a call made by those who took part in the October 2019 meeting of bishops on the Amazon region held in Rome, on Monday leaders of the Catholic Church in Latin America announced the creation of the Amazonian Ecclesial Conference. The hope is that the new organism will help "delineate a Church with an Amazonian face, and to continue the task of finding new paths for the evangelizing mission," says a statement signed by Archbishop Miguel Cabrejos...
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If you suffer from scrupulosity or OCD that's interfering with key life goals, take heart.....
OCD is a common disorder that feeds scrupulosity. There may be treatment avenues for OCD that you haven't yet pursued that could help. If you are not already in contact with a physician or psychologist about the condition, I strongly recommend consulting one to see what options may be available. One of the most promising treatments for OCD is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, which-among other things-can involve exposure to the things that trigger a person's OCD to help him become desensitiz...
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Italian financier at heart of Vatican scandal appeals to UK court...
According to a recent report in Corriere della Sera, Italy's paper of record, an Italian financier now based in London named Raffele Mincione has filed two civil suits against the Vatican's Secretariat of State before the UK's High Court of Justice, both related to a now-infamous land deal in London's Chelsea neighborhood he brokered in 2013. That $225 million deal...
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Today's Supreme Court decision isn't the last word on abortion — Roe v. Wade can still be overturned...
Today, by a vote of 5 to 4, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down a Louisiana law requiring abortionists to have admitting privileges at hospitals within 30 miles of their practice. The opinion in June Medical Services v. Russo is quite fractured and legally technical. It does not bring the pro-life movement any closer to overthrowing Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey; but it does not likely move us further away from that end either. More litigation to that end is still required.
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Those caught up in the moral frenzy of the moment ought to think twice about what their “symbolic murder” symbolizes...
In our culture, we have gotten so used to the idea that "iconoclasm" is a good and admirable thing, a vigorous rethinking of hoary pieties and staid traditions, that we have forgotten the horror and waste of what the word really signifies. We are now in the process of being reminded. Iconoclasm is nearly always associated with moments of religious or quasi-religious conflict, when profoundly different convictions and sensibilities come into conflict and understandings of the sacred become lo...
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Archbishop Viganò on the brink of schism — the unheeded lesson of Benedict XVI...
Benedict XVI promoted him to apostolic nuncio in the United States in 2011. The meek theologian pope certainly could not have imagined, nine years ago, that Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò - who returned to private life in 2016 but has been anything but hidden - would today be blaming him for having "deceived" the whole Church in that he would have it be believed that the Second Vatican Council was immune to heresies and moreover should be interpreted in perfect continuity with true perennial...
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Pay close attention to this question and warning from the Lord.....
In the 4th Century, St. Augustine lamented the decline of Rome and Roman culture. Like any good citizen, he loved his country and culture. But things were falling to pieces, decadence was everywhere. He struggled to understand this and accept it. In his sorrow he wrote The City of God which contains his own observations and explanations of a time much like our own wherein a civilization was collapsing.
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Has the discussion on the next pope already begun?
"If I sit in a conclave tomorrow, I would not know the person sitting next to me." This is what a cardinal - I will not reveal his name - told me some time ago. This says a lot about the feelings of the college of cardinals before an eventual election of another Pope. Until now, Pope Francis has held one consistory to create new cardinals per year and created 88 cardinals...
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Cardinal O'Malley sacks MIT chaplain for his thoughts, as a Catholic priest, on mercy, justice and George Floyd...
Earlier this year, a Catholic priest published a book entitled "Mercy: What Every Catholic Should Know," focusing on doctrine and discipleship issues that, ordinarily, would not cause controversy. But these are not ordinary times. Acting as a Catholic chaplain at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Father Daniel Moloney tried to apply his words about mercy and justice to the firestorm of protests and violence unleashed by the killing of George Floyd by a white Minneapolis police officer.
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Pope's Sunday Angelus: “There is no true love without the cross”...
There is no true love without the cross, Pope Francis said in his Angelus address Sunday. Speaking from a window overlooking St. Peter's Square June 28, the pope reflected on the day's Gospel reading, in which Jesus tells his disciples: "Whoever does not take up his cross and follow after me is not worthy of me." "This means following Him along the path that He Himself trod, without looking for shortcuts," he said, according to an unofficial translation provided by the Holy See Press...
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4 disciplines of worthy disciples...
In the Gospel this Sunday, the Lord gives four important principles for a disciple. He also teaches on the concept of being worthy of Him. We tend think of being worthy as acting in a way that meets a certain standard, but the Greek word for "worthy" involves more than merely external behavior, important though that is. To be worthy of the Lord is to ascribe worth and give proper weight to who He is and what He teaches. Let's take a look.
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The saints in the public square...
People of prayer are witnessing to the religious dimension of humanity. Even in the face of an angry crowd, the gentle tenderness of holy humanity is a sign that helps everyone return to their senses. The one thing all the politicians, experts and mobs have in common is that they do not understand the religious dimension of humanity. That is why saints are so important. The witness of someone praying the Rosary even as rancor is...
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To become who you are, give yourself away...
Sunday's readings touch on one of the core question of our time, and give a surprising answer. The question is, "What makes me me?" and you see the consequences of the wrong answer all around us, in everything from protestors tearing down statues and rejecting their own history to gender ideology teaching people to reject the evidence of their own bodies. This is because from the very beginning, "I decide who I am" has been a recipe for disaster.
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Federal judge rules New York must give churches same consideration as protests, shopping malls during pandemic ...
A federal judge on Friday ruled that New York must allow indoor and outdoor religious services in the same way it would allow mass outdoor protests, or indoor shopping malls. Judge Gary Sharpe of the Northern District of New York said that the state cannot limit outdoor religious services during the pandemic, provided that attendees follow social distancing requirements. For indoor services, he said, the state has to make the same allowances for churches as it does for other businesses.
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The laity must help priests embrace their Eucharistic identity in Christ. Many souls are at stake, including the souls of priests.....
As a new wave of protests erupt in response to the death of Rayshard Brooks, many Catholics are finding themselves angered, frustrated, and perplexed, but not in the way that immediately comes to mind. For months, we have been told that we must be exiled from the public celebration of the Mass, and, in some dioceses, from the Sacraments as a whole, for the sake of the common good. We were told by countless bishops and priests that we have an obligation to protect the most vulnerable among us fro
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Catholic Church in Germany loses record 272,771 members in single year...
A record number of Catholics formally left the Church in Germany in 2019, according to official figures released Friday. The statistics issued June 26 showed that 272,771 people exited the Catholic Church last year, a significant increase on the 2018 figure of 216,078. In a June 26 statement, Bishop Georg Bätzing, president of the German bishops' conference, said that he did not wish to "gloss over" the figures.
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Are you a saint or an ain't? There are no other options.....
In the Sermon on the Mount, the Lord offers us a whole new life and we must choose to accept it and see our life change, based on it, or we will simply be unfit to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. Our flesh hates these sort of "all or nothing" scenarios. We prefer things to be vague and fuzzy. We prefer a "many paths to God" scenario. But in the end our preferences do not change the reality which the Lord sets before us...
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This chart reveals the oldest restaurant in (almost) every country...
Good food is a cultural treasure that is handed down through generations. Many of the world's oldest businesses are restaurants for the simple reason that delicious, familiar food never goes out of fashion. Everywhere in the world, we eat variations on centuries-old recipes embedded in the place we come from. Restaurant culture tells us who we are, where we've been, and where we are today.
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Catholics gather around Ventura's St. Junípero Serra sculpture to save statue from mob...
Thanks to the presence of a small band of Catholics, a "Tear Down Junipero Serra" event in front of Ventura City Hall on Saturday concluded with the bronze statue of Padre Serra standing unharmed. Up and down California, mobs are destroying statues of Junipero Serra, canonized in 2015, along with statues of other prominent and not-so-prominent historical figures. Vandals toppled and destroyed statues of the saint in San Francisco and Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday.
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Thoughts on various subjects, from the pre-history of Twitter...
The cry "Liberty, equality, fraternity or death!" was much in vogue during the Revolution. Liberty ended by covering France with prisons, equality by multiplying titles and decorations, and fraternity by dividing us. Death alone prevailed. Even after the example of France, Europe lacks one last lesson. Woe to the people destined to give it to her! The most beautiful monuments executed in Paris under Bonaparte's orders are the rue de Rivoli...
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How Flannery O'Connor fought racism...
In a recent New Yorker essay, Paul Elie asks, "How Racist Was Flannery O'Connor?" His headline aims to be incendiary, to rile people up, to give us a scapegoat for our rage against racism. Racism is obviously a serious sin. But Elie's portrait of the author is incomplete. Because he misreads much of O'Connor's writing, he concludes that she was unrepentantly racist. But O'Connor did not embrace bigotry. Like all of us, she was a sinner who struggled to purge herself of prejudices s...
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Pecknold and Anderson: How the Supreme Court is imposing sexual ideology on America...
We have our highest court completely unhinged from reality," said C.C. Pecknold, Ph.D., a professor at The Catholic University of America, referring to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in Bostock vs. Clayton County. "Bostock unhinges just the very nature of the person as sexually differentiated. It's a kind of sad, in a way not surprising, conclusion to a long series of decisions.
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What is the difference between a friar, a monk and a priest?
"Friar," "monk," "priest." These are somewhat flexible terms, but not exactly so. Popularly, they are all understood to point at a life of sacrifice and poverty. But while all variation of priesthoods may be equivalent, their vocations are not alike, except in that they are meant to live their lives in service. A priest may be monastic, or religious, or "secular"...
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Getting back in the habit of Mass...
After an accusation was made against him during his confirmation process two years ago, Judge Brett Kavanaugh submitted his highly-detailed personal calendar from his high school days as exculpatory evidence. Some of his opponents noticed that "going to Mass" was not on his calendar—and that seemed an odd omission for a devout Catholic. Kavanaugh explained this by saying, "Some have noticed that I didn't have 'church on Sunday' on my calendars...
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Will there be a Church in the U.S. in 2040?
"The real crisis has scarcely begun." So was the forecast of Joseph Ratzinger in 1969. Recent projections by the Canadian Anglicans estimate that "there will be no members, attenders or givers in the Anglican Church of Canada by approximately 2040." Is the Catholic Church in the United States heading in the same direction? As public Masses open up again in the United States, many dioceses are barely able to fill the 25-percent or 30-percent capacity now allowable in parish churches.
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Vatican issues new catechetical directory addressing new sex and bioethics challenges...
Bioethics, gender identity, and biological sex are new subjects covered in the Vatican's latest Directory for Catechesis, released Thursday. The revised directory says that new scientific developments must remain respectful of the creative will of God and human dignity. The 300-page book, which provides universal norms for pastors and catechists in the work of evangelization, was written in continuity with the Church's directories from 1971 and 1997...
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3 hard sayings of the Lord that irritate modern sensibilities...
One of the reasons we are so easily offended today is, frankly, that we lack sophistication. We seem to have lost understanding of simile and metaphor. Metaphors and similes are figures of speech; they achieve their effect through association, comparison, and resemblance. They can highlight hidden similarities between two different things. A simile directly compares two different things and normally includes words such as...
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The Seven Seals and the Book of Revelation...
Returning from a brief vacation, I find myself faced with St. John's visions of the warfare between earth and heaven which characterizes the time remaining before Christ returns in glory. The Book of Revelation describes this in eschatological language—language which is symbolic of the battle between good and evil, God and Satan which fulfills and concludes our history.
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Censorship and the future of e-readers...
A Kindle, or any comparable e-reader, can be a great convenience. If you're packing for a vacation trip (which you probably aren't doing this year, but that's another story), it's nice to know that you can bring along all of Shakespeare, all of Trollope, a few dozen mysteries, and the Summa, without making your suitcase any heavier.
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Pope's Wednesday audience: 'In life's ups and downs, make prayer your constant'...
King David is an example of being consistent in prayer no matter what life throws at you or what good or bad you do, Pope Francis said during his general audience Wednesday. Prayer "is able to ensure the relationship with God, who is the true Companion of man's journey, in the midst of the many hardships of life: good or bad," the pope said June 24.
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Why “What are the bishops doing about it?” is the wrong question...
Recently, the bishops of California made a statement regarding the attacks on the statues of St. Junipero Serra in San Francisco, Ventura, and Los Angeles. While acknowledging that there are legitimate concerns about racism both historical and contemporary, we insisted that the characterization of Serra as the moral equivalent of Hitler and the missions he founded as tantamount to death camps is simply unconscionable...
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Where's the Catholic voice on the Holy Land both sides could hear?
According to World Bank statistics, almost three-quarter of the world's population today wasn't even alive in 1974, when a Greek Melkite archbishop from Syria named Hilarion Capucci was arrested in Israel for smuggling Kalashnikovs, pistols, dynamite and detonators for the PLO, presumably for use against Israeli targets.
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The bondage of cultural illiteracy...
"At last I am free!" declared Martin Niemoller, holding a small book as the prison door was locked behind him. He had been allowed to keep a Bible, and his words would have been an inscrutable paradox only to those who do not understand the freedom ensured by literacy, and the greatest freedom endowed by words that are sacred. After the destruction of the Second Temple in A.D. 70...
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Say what you will about the Vatican, there's no denying its sense of drama...
If it's one of those days and you're inclined to start moaning about the Vatican, it's honestly hard to know where to start and stop: It's clericalist, certainly, but also often benighted, obtuse, obstructionist, revanchist, spectacularly tone-deaf and inept, sometimes corrupt and, once in a while, just outrageously embarrassing. Pope Francis famously cataloged 15 spiritual diseases of the Roman Curia in his first Christmas address to the top Vatican brass, but if he were being graded by...
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Catholic school closures rise amid COVID-19, recession...
While public school districts struggle with shrinking budgets, dozens of Roman Catholic schools already have permanently shuttered this spring, nearly all for reasons directly related to the coronavirus pandemic and its resulting campus and economic shutdowns.
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Father Michael Scanlan's 1976 prophecy and the events of 2020...
When leaders of the Catholic Charismatic Renewal heard Franciscan Father Michael Scanlan, the president of Franciscan University of Steubenville, deliver a prophecy in 1976 about a time of lawlessness and shuttered churches, no one imagined such a scenario occurring soon — or ever. "We didn't dismiss it, but we kind of put it to the side," Ralph Martin said. Now, 44 years later, the message has struck home, as the seemingly extreme events it cited are happening.
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Nicaragua and El Salvador bishops push back against government-backed critics...
Bishops in El Salvador have defended the country's cardinal after he was attacked in social media over his comments about the government. Meanwhile, the president of Chile attended the funeral of his late uncle, a bishop who was under investigation for sexually abusing a minor and a bishop in Nicaragua warned about the persecution of the Church. These are some of the top stories from Latin America.
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Bringing Christ to the homeless...
The first time I ventured out in Manhattan after the Coronavirus shutdown was in mid-May. I saw men glaring at me—glaring and grunting. They were dazed and confused and angry. I was in New York's Penn Station and you didn't even have to hit the sidewalk to be hollered at. It was dark inside and everyone, except a few homeless men, was walking around with facemasks. The first man who stopped me seemed furious when he asked for money and I offered him a fresh sandwich instead...
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What did MIT chaplain Father Daniel Moloney say that got him fired by Cardinal O'Malley?
This is how sin works, says Father Moloney: it spreads like an infection through all things human. And he is right. This is the tragedy of being human: even those who seek to do good may find themselves suddenly doing evil, and even those who have done evil may find themselves victimized unjustly. The Catholic Church opposes the death penalty because nobody loses their dignity as children of God, no matter what they have done. This is what the priest is reminding his flock.
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'Into the Spider-Verse' and why we need more good fathers...
At the heart of the best stories are questions that ask about human nature: What does it mean to be human? We were given one of those stories in the Oscar-winning Spider-man: Into the Spider-Verse. It's an instance of the age-old "coming-of-age" narratives, which are interesting because they particularize the question, "What does it mean to be human?" into the question, "What does it mean to be a man, and how does a boy become one?"
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The perils of overactive imaginations as Benedict XVI and his brother say goodbye...
Americans of a certain age grew up knowing there were two subjects you didn't discuss at the dinner table: Religion and politics. Both stir deep and often uncontrollable passions, a problem that gets even worse when you weave the two topics together. Perhaps it shouldn't be surprising, then, that a surprise trip by Pope emeritus Benedict XVI to his native Bavaria to be with his dying brother, Monsignor Georg Ratzinger, seems to be stoking fevered political and religious imaginations.
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Benedict XVI returns to Rome after visiting ill brother in Germany...
Pope emeritus Benedict XVI arrived back in Rome Monday after a four-day trip to Germany to visit his ailing brother. The Diocese of Regensburg reported June 22 that 93-year-old Benedict XVI said goodbye to his 96-year-old brother, Msgr. Georg Ratzinger, who is in poor health, before departing for Munich airport.
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Heart of Jesus, Holy Temple of God...
I've been reading, recently, a good deal of the work of Dietrich von Hildebrand—perhaps not a household name, but in fact one of the greatest Catholic philosophers of the last century. An inspiration to both John Paul II and Benedict XVI, von Hildebrand was designated by the Nazis themselves as their number one enemy in the 1930s—pretty high praise, that...
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In praise of the Father, and our fathers...
The English Jesuit Gerard Manley Hopkins captures the magnificence of creation, even something of the haunting mystery that there is something rather than nothing, in this marvelous poem. All things have come from God. They belong to the dynamic love of the Father. Hopkins in fact, concludes the paean of praise of creation describing God, saying, "He fathers-forth." God is known by his work as Father, He who first creates, then sustains, and directs the whole of the order of creation.
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Pope Francis adds three new titles to Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary...
Pope Francis has approved the inclusion of three additional invocations in the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also called the Litany of Loreto. In a June 20 letter to the presidents of bishops' conferences, Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of the Congregation for the Divine Liturgy and the Discipline of the Sacraments, said the invocations "Mater misericordiae," "Mater spei," and "Solacium migrantium" should be inserted in the Marian litany.
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