Commentary
Scorsese’s The Saints: an admirable portrayal of St. Joan of Arc
Catholics have reason to distrust Scorsese based on some of his past work, but having watched the first episode on St. Joan of Arc, I can give it fairly high praise. The short version is that the dramatization of St. Joan making up the bulk of the episode is excellently done, but the epilogue panel discussion with a group of liberal Catholics is not good (though also not as bad as I feared).
Lessons from Blessed Karl’s coronation
A ruler or lawmaker either acknowledges the source of his authority, performing his duties to the state as duties towards God, or he fails to acknowledge it, which is already to rebel against God and cut himself off from the source of his authority.
The Astonishing Promise of Jesus
The brevity of the Gospels allows the Church to hand down the words of Jesus throughout the centuries with ease but encourages endless theological reflection.
Yes, Catholics should celebrate the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Every September 8th my family and I gather together to commemorate America’s first thanksgiving, the Mass celebrated in Florida in 1565 expressing gratitude to almighty God that the Spanish crown claimed the future sunshine state for God and...
The dangerous ‘spirit of synodality’
Pope Francis has made it clear from the outset that the real purpose of the Synod was to begin a process, to create a new understanding of what it means to be the Church, to usher in a new “synodal” approach to Catholicism.
A must-read biography of Fr. Joseph Fessio
We are introduced to the tremendous vitality and surprising escapades of one of the great pioneers of Catholic renewal over the past sixty years. From the way Joe Fessio drove a car in his teens through the legendary walking retreats he led in Europe to his remarkable institutional achievements in the United States, Fr. Buckley’s biography captures the essence of a priest who managed to accomplish great things for God from within a religious order in serious decline.
Job and St. Augustine in one film: The Tree of Life (2011)
The Tree of Life may well be the greatest movie ever made, owing to its unmatched poetic power. Heavily inspired by the book of Job and St. Augustine's Confessions, director Terrence Malick gives profound spiritual and cosmic scope to the story of an ordinary family in 1950s Texas. Seen through the memory of a present-day narrator seeking the traces of God in his past, it offers archetypal yet vivid picture of family life and how we gain, lose, and recover our awareness of "love smiling through all things".
Advent-Christmas Ebook released for new liturgical year
Our free liturgical year ebooks offer a rich set of resources for families to use in living the liturgical year in the domestic church. Resources include biographies of the saints to match each feast day, histories of the various celebrations and devotions, descriptions of customs from around the world, prayers, activities and recipes.
Egeria the Pilgrim and the Stations of the Cross
Egeria (or Etheria) was a woman who embarked on a three-year pilgrimage to the Holy Land, in the late fourth century. From her “pilgrimage diary” (actually fragments from her letters to her “sisters” back in Spain) we learn much about liturgy in Jerusalem. There we can see the beginnings of the lectionary, and the seeds of the Stations of the Cross. In this episode, Dr. Papandrea also talks about the history of the spiritual discipline of pilgrimage itself.
Pope Benedict XVI—Deus Caritas Est (God Is Love) | Part 1
“This is love in its most radical form. By contemplating the pierced side of Christ, we can understand the starting-point of this Encyclical Letter: 'God is love'. It is there that this truth can be contemplated. It is from there that our definition of love must begin. In this contemplation the Christian discovers the path along which his life and love must move.”
Education must be controlled by a child’s parents
The Church must play an important role in education—not perhaps primarily through traditional parish and diocesan schools, but especially by providing spiritual and even material support to parents for home-schooling and what I call cooperative schooling. We also need new religious communities to embrace the very Catholic mission of supporting and enhancing home and cooperative school efforts, offering active involvement in these forms of education.
Synodality and the perversion of conscience
Too often “conscience” has been portrayed as that faculty which enables us to do what we want to do, ignoring the inner voice that tells us it is wrong.
Who’s behind the violent attacks on the Church?
So can we relax, reassured that there is not a worldwide, concerted attack on Catholic priests and the Catholic Church? Maybe not.
All About the Money
Supporting the parish is a matter of justice. Like the widow's generosity, our contributions become charitable when they eat into the layer of our sustenance – or until it hurts, as Mother Teresa says.
Celebrate, yes. But also steel yourself for the battles ahead.
But left-to-right converts today are still far left of the moral consensus that the earlier generation of conservative converts had hoped to restore. They are fine with the destruction of marriage and the killing of the unborn. They just want the Woke to at least stop performing genital mutilation on minors. Even if we are celebrating a victory, we need to temper our enthusiasmby maintaining a clear vision of today’ awkward reality.
Correcting what “everybody knows” about President Trump
if voters nationwide picked democrat candidates to remedy the supposed ills of Democracy as identified by VP Kamala Harris and members of the Congressional Committee investigating the January 6, 2021 capitol civil disturbance, they chose exactly the wrong group of candidates to remedy the situation. Here’s why.
Saving the world from democracy
The excesses of the Democratic administration reflected an understanding of American small-d democracy divorced from its essential republican character.
Better prayer and faster growth in virtue: Two new books
For those who recognize their need for good spiritual habits, the difficulty becomes to repeat them mindfully. As I get older, I find it far easier to sit on the couch in the evening with my eyes closed in meditation only to have my wife tell me I’m snoring. Perhaps this is a holy way to fall asleep. But falling asleep is at least not always the goal.
Make America Good Again
Never mind that the tablets of the Ten Commandments grace the Capitol Dome. Love for power replaces love for God.
What Hath Commonweal Wrought? Catholic Lay Opinion Journalism 100 Years Later
I know quite a few who, upon reaching adulthood, filled the gaps in their religious education by watching EWTN. For me, it was the Catholic magazines. This, again, was the 1990s—the decade before the internet destroyed everything. Even apart from the three dissident publications I just named—even among the orthodox publications—the diversity was amazing.
G.E.M. Anscombe—Contraception and Chastity
"For we don't invent marriage... any more than we invent human language. It is part of the creation of humanity and if we're lucky we find it available to us and can enter into it. If we are very unlucky, we may live in a society that has wrecked or deformed this human thing."
On letting reality shine...through Christ
As Christianity has waned, we in the West have frequently attempted to reduce all the arts, including music, to the lowest common denominator, along with every other appeal to the human mind and human sensibilities. But just as beauty cannot be reduced to the lowest common denominator, neither can goodness and truth.
What the NY Times missed in the latest encyclical: the whole point
Is it now considered bad taste, by the standards of mainstream journalism, to mention the name of Jesus? Even to mention that the Roman Pontiff has mentioned that name? Because Popes often do that, you know; it shouldn’t come as a shock even to the sensitive readers of the New York Times.
Reckless Persistence
Popular culture teaches us to “trust our feelings.” Baloney. Our emotions should not rule us. We should rule our passions.
It’s not 2004 anymore: The stale Catholic debate over voting ignores new threats
In the twenty years between Mario Cuomo’s 1984 speech and John Kerry’s 2004 presidential run, nothing had changed. In the twenty years since John Kerry’s campaign, everything has changed. But we are still trapped in a stale system that keeps spinning in place, reproducing the same arguments and frustrations over and over again.
The new Sacred Heart encyclical: Encouraging!
The new encyclical on the Sacred Heart of Jesus is a major effort to gather together the many threads of devotion to the heart of Our Lord as it has developed down through history, and as it deserves to be renewed and deepened in our time.
Cardinal-designate Radcliffe objects...
Father Radcliffe says that he does not know how I could have misinterpreted his argument. I think I do know why he misinterpreted mine.
Rufinus of Aquileia and the Apostles’ Creed
Rufinus is mostly known as the translator of Origen, and the opponent of St. Jerome in the controversy over Origen. But he also wrote an important commentary on the Apostles’ Creed, which is on Dr. Papandrea’s list of “state of the art documents,” patristic works that succinctly showcase the state of the development of doctrine at the time they were written.
Chicken Man
The Christian redefinition of greatness allows even the most ordinary people to be great... No job is too small for greatness, provided we perform our tasks with love and diligence.
Catholic hospitals must witness to the Truth
Legally-speaking, the use of the word “Catholic” in a name or statement of purpose has always involved a certain connection with, or at least permission of, the bishop of the diocese in which an organization is located or controlled. This may not always be upheld in secular law, but it must certainly be assumed in ecclesiastical law, and any organization which bears the Catholic name ought to be approved, or if necessary repudiated, by the official Church.
Freedom in vocation: The Sound of Music (1965)
The Sound of Music is rightly beloved by Catholics. James and Thomas discuss the movie's all-around excellence, break down Julie Andrews's virtuosic performance, and explore what the film says about the freedom and openness necessary to discern and pursue one's vocation in life.
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