Commentary
The best movies I watched in 2024
Thomas Mirus lists the best movies he watched in 2024.
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Solidarity, Original Sin, and Human Sacrifice
Like an inkblot, evil is expansive. I may regret my road rage but think nothing of its consequences. The recipient of my sin may go home and ruin a happy evening with his family.
McElroy, McCarrick, and the Catholic Left
Pope Francis has appointed Cardinal McElroy the next Archbishop of Washington, DC. It's a bad call for reasons political, pastoral, and doctrinal. But most of all, says Wolfgang, it's a bad call because of lingering questions about McElroy and "Uncle Ted."
Not ordinary bread, please, but the Bread of Life
The mere presence of churches is not enough. It is big step for someone to visit a church and navigate his or her way through the physical plant and the staff arrangements to find someone to talk with about spiritual interests, doubts, desires, and fears. It makes perfect sense to have designated locations deliberately staffed for precisely this purpose, and it can only help to advertise them as widely as possible. The goal must be availability without intrusiveness.
188—Christians against AI art—Susannah Black Roberts
Surprisingly, many Christians are already embracing the use of AI to produce images of the saints. In this episode, Thomas and Susannah Black Roberts make the argument for why AI art is a contradiction in terms. It is analogous to pornography in that it scratches the itch to “create” without actually achieving the object of the desire in question. We should not use technology to replace the human specialties: “God won’t accept worship that we outsource.”
Prophetic courage in the public square, and everywhere
Most of my readers have already been baptized as “priests, prophets and kings”. Unfortunately, most of us do not work very hard at developing the prophetic aspect. In fact, just as there were huge numbers of false prophets in Israel who told the high and mighty exactly what they wanted to hear, so too is even the Catholic Church herself always riddled with false prophets—with all those who bear the Catholic name but who constantly seek either to conceal the Catholic spirit or to betray it.
The best books Catholic Culture staff read in 2024
It’s time for the Catholic Culture staff’s roundup of our favorite things we read in the past year, with lists by Dr. Jeff Mirus, Phil Lawler, Dr. Jim Papandrea, Peter Wolfgang, and Thomas Mirus.
What the Magi took away
Why did these men from another country want to see “he who has been born king of the Jews?” This was not a diplomatic mission. This was a pilgrimage: a journey of faith.
Bonds of Blood
Clear violations of the Commandments often require the prophetic voice of the clergy. However, the clergy frequently fail to maintain the necessary restraint and infringe upon the rights and duties of the laity.
Liturgical Year Volume 2 Released: Ordinary Time before Lent
This liturgical year ebook includes all the liturgical day information for the period of Ordinary Time before Lent just as it appears on CatholicCulture.org. It offers 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.
A failed attempt to enforce priestly celibacy?
Is it pure coincidence that the bishops cited for incompetence in management seem to come exclusively from one end of the theological spectrum?
Is it always wrong to speak plainly? A Christmas answer
Today it is generally considered sinful to firmly speak the truth except when somebody clearly wishes to hear it. Yet, if it is not to be useless, truth demands more frequent expression. Here is a sample of what the truth sounds like. Have we heard it recently? Have we said it recently?
Mary, the Mass, and Vanilla Priests
Just as Marxist and “woke” ideologies hope to cut off the past and remake ourselves in the image of various ideologies, we are often eager to update the Church according to contemporary whims. And the Mass is a frequent target.
5.1 The Doctors of the Church—Introduction
With this episode, we begin our new series on the Doctors of the Church. What is a Doctor of the Church? Are all Doctors also saints? What makes a person a Doctor of the Church? All these questions, and more, will be answered, as well as some hints at what you can expect from this series. Get ready to sample the fruit of some of the greatest minds the Church has ever produced!
See something, say something. Is that gossip?
Perhaps under ordinary circumstances that would be good advice. But for the past 25 years the Catholic Church has not been operating under ordinary circumstances. Apply the Pope's suggestion to, say, the case of McCarrick. Or Zanchetta. Or Rupnik.
Priests and Families
Competent doctors have patients to remind them to live healthy lives. Competent priests also have the privilege of penitents helping them examine their conscience.
New birth for humanity: Children of Men (2006) w/ Timothy Reckart
Timothy Reckart rejoins the podcast to discuss a movie that has a marked resonance with the Nativity story, Alfonso Cuaron’s brilliantly crafted dystopian thriller Children of Men. Set in 2027, it depicts a world that has fallen into despair and chaos because of a worldwide infertility crisis: no one has been able to have a baby in eighteen years. Jaded protagonist Theo is given the task of secretly escorting a young refugee woman to the English coast - and then discovers that she is pregnant.
The manifest failure of the Vatican deal with China
As we end the calendar year, there are seventy dioceses in China without a bishop. In most cases the sees have been vacant for years-- in more than few cases, for decades.
A look back at 2024, Catholic Culture, and me
This being my last column of the calendar year, let’s look back and assess. How did I do?
Pleasure is never enough: Lighting the way to joy
Out of a fear of the apparent restrictions imposed by any objective apprehension of “the good”, we repeatedly choose our desire for pleasure over the more strenuous (and in our day more embarrassing) calls to truth and goodness that urge us to reflect more deeply on the nature of reality, and on our need to be saved. The answer to this catastrophic problem is not a theory but a fact—not an argument but a Person.
Blasphemy that’s fit to print?
Kristof leads off his piece, an interview with Princeton University’s Elaine Pagels, the author of The Gnostic Gospels, by saying: “I want to be respectful of readers who have a deep faith….” He has an odd way of showing that respect.
‘The Humanity’
Even today, Christmas competes with wars, rumors of wars, and the national debt for prominence as we anxiously await the next crime of the century. Yet, occasionally, events reveal the simple human significance of the Infancy Narratives.
Brian Burch, the new U.S. ambassador to the Holy See, might have both official and unofficial duties
Trump nominates CatholicVote's Brian Burch to be U.S. ambassador to the Holy See. Wolfgang gives him extra work to do while he's there.
O Come, O Come, Emmanuel—the O Antiphons!
Through these successive antiphons, the Church expresses its yearning for the coming of the Savior by praising Christ as the wisdom of God, the lord and ruler of Israel, the root of Jesse, the key of David, the Dayspring, the king of nations, and Emmanuel—the name prophesied by Isaiah (7:14), which means “God is with us”, and which St. Matthew applies to Christ in his gospel (1:23).
The Expectation
For me at least, the “Expectation” evokes strong feelings that every parent knows: the anticipation, the excitement, the anxiety, the impatience that have been building for nine months, coming to a crescendo in the final days before the birth.
What the rededication of Notre Dame (should have) taught us
Yet on the day when the cathedral was rededicated, and the attention of the world was focused on this building that speaks of the hunger for transcendence, the ceremony failed to capitalize on this unique “teachable moment.” When the secular world paused, listening to hear the echoes of an ancient faith, the ceremony spoke only in modern language.
Synodality today: The power of God or the wisdom of men?
The Church needs to be far less concerned about convoluted structures and exploratory methods in a never-ending effort to appear more “consultative” and “open”. People will learn to manipulate the new structures just as they have manipulated the old. The New Evangelization cannot be accomplished through processes and procedures. Instead, the Church must become once again missionary, and probably never more missionary than in the places where she once thought she was already established.
187—The Roman Rite, ad orientem worship, and liturgical tradition—Fr. Uwe Michael Lang
Fr. Uwe Michael Lang discusses the history of the Roman Rite, the value of ad orientem worship, problems with liturgical antiquarianism and more.
The Artificial Jesus
Disembodied Artificial Jesus is never negative or scary. Are you tired of homilies at Mass? No worries. Plug in Artificial Jesus. Need heartfelt counseling from an expert? Talk to Artificial Jesus.
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