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All Catholic commentary from September 2024
Priests Preaching Politics
The words of Jesus are often harsh, and apply to all of us who, like the Pharisees, take sinful pride in our religiosity.
God’s justice or God’s mercy?
The line between depending on God’s mercy and seeking to conform ourselves ever more fully to God’s will can often be hard to cross. Or, to put it another way, even devout souls are far more likely to pray for God’s mercy for “sinners” or “poor sinners”, considered as a category in which we do not include ourselves—except perhaps by rote in the Our Father and the Hail Mary.
Angel Studios: questioning the hype
In just four short years, Angel Studios has become a household name among Christians, and for some it represents the cutting edge of religious cinema. But does the distributor of The Chosen, Sound of Freedom, and Cabrini really merit the hype?
No, your parish is not ‘vibrant’
Is your parish or diocese oscillating or pulsating rapidly? No. Nor should it. So why is the word “vibrant” invoked with such mind-numbing frequency to describe Catholic communities?
Why aren’t there more Catholic Bibles?
The Catholic apologetics movement of the last several decades has done incredible work to better educate lay Catholics in our faith. One mountain still to climb, though, is to get Catholics to buy Bibles in as large a number as our separated brethren do, and to read them. Why is the Protestant Bible-selling market so much more gigantic than the Catholic one?
Dancing with the devil
Want to tempt someone to anger? Give him a newspaper. To envy? Magazine advertisements. To lust, or greed, or gluttony? Log onto the internet. Your ticket to perdition may be purchased with a click of the mouse.
Church Teaching on Cinema: Vatican II and Beyond
In the Vatican II era, official Church engagement with cinema as a distinct art was largely replaced by discussion of "social communications" generically. However, there were still some important things said in Church documents dealing with film under the pontificates of St. Paul VI and St. John Paul II.
On hacking Planned Parenthood
It is perfectly clear that when evil actions are protected by law and government, the means of combatting such evils will often violate the law. That in itself is not a legitimate moral deterrent, even if one must take into account the consequences of any increased disrespect for the law. Consider for example the many laws one must disobey in totalitarian societies merely to avoid complicity in evil.
Self-Portraits
As we strive to identify our temperaments in need of God’s grace, we look to the Scriptures for hints of the temperaments of certain biblical characters.
183—Does Angel Studios merit the hype?
James Majewski plays guest host in this episode, asking Thomas about his recent essay critiquing the well-known Christian film distributor Angel Studios (associated with The Chosen, Sound of Freedom, and Cabrini).
Athenagoras the Athenian: Apology Not Accepted
The early Christian apologist Athenagoras may not be as famous as some of the other Church fathers, but he’s a great example of someone who started out as an apologist against Christianity, but when he actually learned what the apostles and the Church taught, he was converted. He teaches us about the doctrines of the Trinity, and the Resurrection.
Vocation shortage? There’s no such thing.
When a priest or a nun is asked when he or she began thinking seriously about a vocation, the answer is often disarmingly simple: when someone asked.
Did Trump really lose the debate?
No, Kamala did not best Trump in that debate. Trump rebutted her points and frequently turned them back on her. Not a knockout, like he scored against Biden. But a win. Or, at worst, a draw. Which, given the numbers right now, is still a Trump win.
Spiritual Preparation—Turning and Becoming a Child
Dr. Montessori encouraged the adults who work with children to first focus on spiritual preparation of the adult, inner preparation, transformation, especially in virtues of openness, humility, patience, love and respect.
The threat of a runaway Synod
Having spent the last three years insisting that the Church must be practice “synodal” government, would the Pontiff now countermand a decision by the Synod?
Fruits of the Vatican-Beijing agreement: just the facts
At the going rate of 1.5 episcopal ordinations a year, it would take a bit more than 30 years to provide every Chinese diocese with a bishop.
Love proclaims that all “faiths” do NOT lead to God
The history of the Jews under the Old Covenant is one long Providential path in which God acts decisively to separate His People from the surrounding nations, all of which worship false gods. This is so obvious that I presume I need not spend much time on it. The Jews are warned again and again to keep themselves separate from all the other nations, including the avoidance of any intermarriage, because the other nations all worship “strange gods”—that is, non-existent gods or idols.
Hot Buttons of the Faith
Mary is the model of the Church. The Church is holy and sinless. Peter and the Apostles are the models of the hierarchy. The hierarchy is never without sin.
Pope St. Paul VI—Humanae Vitae (Of Human Life)
"But to experience the gift of married love while respecting the laws of conception is to acknowledge that one is not the master of the sources of life but rather the minister of the design established by the Creator. Just as man does not have unlimited dominion over his body in general, so also, and with more particular reason, he has no such dominion over his specifically sexual faculties, for these are concerned by their very nature with the generation of life, of which God is the source."
Catholics, Freemasons, and the GOP
Masonic membership in the GOP doesn’t break down along ideological lines: there are conservative pro-lifers and socially liberal Republicans. Some of them are Catholic and in denial about the incompatibility of Masonry with the Faith. The Democratic Party is less of a home for Catholics than ever, but I can't help but wonder: Are there questions about the Catholic/Republican alliance that even its critics never thought to ask?
184—Ghosts of memory, myths, and contemporary Catholic poets w/ Ryan Wilson
Catholic poet Ryan Wilson rejoins the podcast to read poems from his latest collection, In Ghostlight, which deals with themes of memory in a "haunted" world, encounters with realities beyond us, and reinterpreting ancient myths (Orpheus as a hair metal singer!). He also introduces four Catholic poets from his new anthology co-edited with April Lindner, Contemporary Catholic Poets.
Sinning against the witness of the martyrs
To a secularized society the message seemed clear: your physical health is more important than your spiritual welfare. That message was— and is— more deadly than the disease.
Faith in a time of socio-political disintegration
Let’s step back a little: What is the essence of our Catholic identity? It is, of course, what we call “the Faith”. But what is faith? As articulated in the New Testament, and most thoroughly in the letters of St. Paul, faith is not mere belief in a set of propositions. Instead, it is centered on the Person of Jesus Christ, and the word “faith” means belief in His teachings; trust in His promises; and obedience to His commands.
The Chosen, Season 4: Lectio Divina or Fan Fiction?
At its best, The Chosen has shed new light on moments from the Gospel by noticing small details of Scripture and fleshing them out. Invented backstories for the Apostles served to support and color the Biblical account. But in season four, the writers seem to be caught up in their own story ideas, so that even the Gospel eventsare overshadowed by wholesale invention.
Ambition
As his disciples jockey for position, Jesus redirects their ambitions… Human dignity in Jesus is the basis of Christianity, and service in sacrificial love is its ambition.
Why Kamala Harris is skipping the Al Smith dinner
Her most avid supporters would be disappointed if Harris failed to confront the cardinal; yet she would offend against civility, and lose the sympathy of many Catholic Democrats, if she did. She couldn’t win.
On contraception, an unfaithful Vatican consultor
The decision to remain open to life in marital relations builds the appropriate space for sacrifice and spiritual maturation which is communicated throughout the family and formed in the next generation. Indeed, couples who commit themselves to living their love vocationally, in a lifelong union defined by the very will of God, have significantly higher success rates in marriage, find a deep and genuine joy in a generous family life, and—incidentally—provide the kind of future citizens that are so badly needed to reshape a wholesome and spiritually productive society.
Father Caius and the Tomb of St. Peter
Caius was a priest in Rome, in the third century. He wrote that if one comes to Rome, one can visit the shrines at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul. These tombs had been known and visited since the apostle’s deaths, and are known to this day - they are in the same place where Caius knew them. The tomb of St. Peter is directly under the main altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican City.
Do Catholic women now have a valid reason to support Harris?
Catholic women prefer Harris. Since we are considering polling data that comes from those who attend Mass weekly, and who believe everything the Church teaches, and who grasp Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist, we may in this instance see an opportunity for the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops to focus its energies on the blunt moral demands of the natural law, and on the overwhelming priority to minimize the absolute moral evils protected and even imposed by law.
The Pope’s politically-incorrect message to East Timor: keep having babies
East Timor lies at one end of that population-growth zone, where the proponents of what the Pope terms “cultural imperialism” have not yet fully convinced the natives to stop reproducing. And even Pope Francis, who has shown so little sympathy for large families, recognized there that the presence of so many babies and toddlers is one strong indication of a healthy culture.
St. John Henry Newman—The Self-Wise Inquirer
"In proportion as we lean to our own understanding, we are driven to do so for want of a better guide. Our first true guide, the light of innocence, is gradually withdrawn from us; and nothing is left for us but to 'grope and stumble in the desolate places,' by the dim, uncertain light of reason."
Abortion is about sex. Duh.
Pro-lifers were telling the truth when they compared the plight of the unborn child to that of the slave in the antebellum South or the Jew in the Holocaust. What they missed, though, is that American slavery and the Nazi Holocaust have nothing to do with sex. Abortion has everything to do with sex. Particularly nonmarital sex.
Why did the Vatican punish a Catholic journalist?
And what, exactly is abuse of the journalistic apostolate?
Priests in Hell
Even the many good deeds of the priest will torment him in hell by reminding him of his heavenly eternity had he remained faithful.
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