Category: On the Good
From time to time we learn of Catholic work that is so good and so much needed today that we want everyone to know about it. This is a service to our readers.
Most Recent Posts
Independent Catholic schools foster Catholic communities
I am sure our readers can alert me to (and remind me of) other successful foundations which have stimulated the development of healthy Catholic communities. It wouldn’t hurt in the least to make a list of those that get several reliable recommendations.
In a fallen world, we work miracles only blindly, in faith
We are navigating through a time of widespread secularization and even apostasy right within the Church. Sometimes the strain of swimming against this powerful current can make us forget that there are still plenty of other currents within the Church that we can swim with. There are a great many things wrong, and we have to know what is wrong. But if we do not also immerse ourselves in what is good, we risk becoming cranks or slipping into disillusion and despair.
On the Good: Catholic webinar on Equality Act, March 22
Since the Equality Act is directly aimed at the destruction of distinctions between male and female and restrictions of the liberty of Christians who must uphold the fundamental realities of God’s creation, CatholicCulture.org welcomes this important initiative to inform everyone of the problems with this Act, advanced by those in the United States, including the Biden Administration, who deny not only Divine Revelation but the natural law which is knowable by all.
MyCatholicDoctor.com: This may be your solution.
If you live in the United States but have had difficulty finding good doctors who both practice medicine morally and address patient concerns in the context of sound Catholic spirituality, then MyCatholicDoctor might be an excellent solution for you. The organization uses video-based consultation, maintains a referral network of “faithful healthcare professionals”, and offers a financial model which accommodates a significant variety of healthcare payment methods.
Fighting addiction with the blood of Christ: The Calix Society
In a world awash in both addictions and addiction programs, it is genuinely inspiring to see an organization helping people to conquer their addictions in Christ, through the Sacraments of the Catholic Church. That’s the methodology of the Calix Society, which was founded originally in 1947...
Knights of the Holy Eucharist
Our readers frequently seek to identify good religious communities, especially if their children are considering a vocation to religious life. This puts me in mind of the Franciscan community of men founded by Mother Angelica in 1998, The Knights of the Holy Eucharist. The Franciscans as a...
Pilgrimage for Newman’s Canonization
The Priestly Society of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman is hosting a ten day pilgrimage to Rome for Newman’s canonization on October 13th. The flight to Rome will depart Newark on the evening of Wednesday, October 9th and return to Newark on Saturday, October 19th. Leadership and...
Prolife Miracle: Mother of Mercy Clinic displaces abortion mill
For twenty-seven years an abortion clinic plied its grisly trade in Manassas, Virginia. Shortly after it got started, a pro-life counseling center called AAA Women for Choice opened up next door to intercept and help pregnant women. Peaceful demonstrations, along with prayer and fasting, became...
K of C installs ultrasound machines across North America
For almost ten years, the Knights of Columbus have been paying for ultrasound machines to be purchased and installed in pro-life centers throughout the United States and Canada. In America, the machines have now been installed in all 50 states. Since the Ultrasound Initiative began in 2009, it...
Inspiring Bible study during Lent? Yes, and it is free.
The St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology in Steubenville, Ohio is mostly the brain child of the noted convert, Scripture scholar and popular speaker, Dr. Scott Hahn. It has grown over the years to encompass both new and pre-existing initiatives, such as Emmaus Road Publishing (and Emmaus...
Making movies and houses: Apostolic work you should know about
There are many great things that lie beyond the usual scope of CatholicCulture.org. Let me stretch a little to call attention to two of them here. Making Movies with St. Michael A request to make the work of St. Michael Movies better known has been in my In Box for far longer than I care to...
The Magdala Apostolate
At CatholicCulture.org we are enthusiastic supporters of the similarly-named Institute for Catholic Culture, which provides outstanding lectures at the Church of St. John the Beloved in McLean, Virginia (these lectures are also live-streamed and archived at the Institute’s website). Now the...
Pro-life crowdfunding and Catholic Netflix
I’d like to call our readers’ attention to two worthy new enterprises which look to fill significant gaps in the Catholic internet. First is a pro-life crowdfunding site called WonderWe. At first I wondered what the need for such a site would be, but as it turns out, mainstream...
Catholica Summer Program in Rome: Highly recommended for young men
Joe Long contacted me over the weekend to let me know about the new Summer Program he is running in Rome for young men aged 14 to 18. Joe is a good friend of one of my sons and a graduate of Christendom College (the four-year Catholic liberal arts college I helped to establish way back in 1977)....
Augustine Institute announces scholarship competition
The Augustine Institute, which offers Masters of Arts degrees in both Theology and Leadership for the New Evangelization, has announced its fourth annual scholarship competition. Each year, the Institute selects four applicants to receive its John Paul II scholarships, which cover the cost of...
The modern university: When truth becomes a personal attack
Molly Oshatz nails it in a little essay in the May 2016 issue of First Things called “College Without Truth”. Right now you can’t read the entire essay without subscribing or paying $1.95, but that would be cheap at twice the price. This is more than another spin on the...
The Labouré Society: Building the Church one vocation at a time
Did you know that nearly half of all Catholic Americans who are actively discerning a priestly or religious vocation are prevented from entering a seminary or a novitiate because they have educational loans? I was not aware of this until a friend of one of my sons called it to my attention. His...
Syrian Patriarch: A special Catholic leader?
Patriarch Ignatius Joseph III (Ignace Youssif III) of the Syriac Catholic Church has become a fresh voice in the daily news. Yesterday we heard him scoffing at Italian museum curators for covering up nude statues during a visit from the President of Iran. Today, we find him praising the military...
The Catholic Navigator: Bon Voyage!
If you are actively involved in catechesis in your parish, or in other formation programs, you may be interested in subscribing to the Catholic Navigator. This is a lay apostolate of experienced catechists which provides printable weekly catechetical supplements for adults and children. The...
Climate change, Catholic mediation, and taming the wolf
Over at the Taming the Wolf Institute, Greg Stone offers an interesting approach to the thorny questions raised by the recent support of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences for the moral and political aims of the global warming movement. I commented on this briefly in What was the climate change...
A blacklist for Catholic universities
Earlier this month, almost 400 U.S. corporations filed an amicus brief to the Supreme Court in favor of same-sex marriage. Since many universities give commencement honors to business leaders every year, the Cardinal Newman Society has released a statement urging Catholic schools not to...
For teachers: Augustine Institute course on Catholic education
For those who may be interested: the Augustine Institute will be offering a course for Catholic teachers and school administrators during the week of June 22. The course, entitled Philosophy 722: Catholic Education: Ends, Principles and Methods, will be taught at the campus in Denver and also...
Evangelizing the Culture for Marriage and Family
Those who wish to deepen their understanding of marriage and the family, and of the contemporary issues involving them, may be interested in a six-part miniseries on EWTN which begins on January 12. The episode schedule: RESOLVING CULTURAL CONFUSION ABOUT MARRIAGE- Monday, January 12 Learn...
Aid for Christians in Iraq and Syria
If you read CatholicCulture.org regularly, you’re probably aware of the suffering of Christians in Iraq and Syria, who have been displaced from their homeland by Islamic extremists. Pope Francis has repeatedly asked Catholics to pray for our beleaguered brethren in the Middle East. Aside...
The Foundation of Prayer for Priests
In 2007, in light of increasing attacks on the priesthood from within and without, and particularly after the scandals that had done such damage to the Church, the Vatican’s Congregation for the Clergy saw the need to begin a global movement of prayer for priests. To that end, the...
An intriguing new Catholic publisher: Tuscany Press
Some months ago a surprising book came across my desk, a review copy of a novel from a publisher I had not yet heard of—David Beckett’s The Cana Mystery. The story revolves around the discovery of the “lost jars of Cana”, the jars used when Our Lord changed water into wine....
Important New Manual of Catholic Medical Ethics
A comprehensive guide to medical ethics, based on the teachings of the Catholic Church, has just been released by Connor Court Publishing in Australia. The text was originally assembled and edited by Dutch Catholic professionals, and has recently been published in an English edition under the...
The Blessed Book of Beasts
There is a long-standing Judeo-Christian tradition of using animals to teach moral and spiritual lessons. Jesus used sparrows to illustrate God’s care for his creatures, and the book of Proverbs describes certain animals as wise. The saints John Chrysostom and Francis de Sales often used...
Lectures on Art and Faith in NYC
Last fall, Jeff Mirus posted about an upcoming lecture series, The Art of the Beautiful, put on by the Catholic Artists Society in Manhattan. The CAS is an association of artists and media professionals, centered in New York City, working for the greater glory of God and the common good....
Dominican theologians assess proposals for divorced and remarried
A group of eight Dominican theologians in the United States has released what I believe is a seminal study in preparation for the 2014 and 2015 synods on the family. The title of this important study is “Recent Proposals for the Pastoral Care of the Divorced and Remarried: A Theological...
Crowdfunding can change lives
A professor at Christendom College has started an Indiegogo campaign to raise money to pay for psychological counseling for students who cannot afford it. The campaign, which has reached a third of its monetary goal with 34 days remaining, will provide a $1,500 course of treatment for two...
A seminar for journalists covering the Church
The Pontifical University of the Holy Cross in Rome is offering an intensive one-week English seminar for foreign journalists who write about the Church. The seminar, which goes from Sept. 8-14, is titled The Church Up Close: Covering Catholicism in the Age of Francis. According to the website,...
Gregorian Chant Camp for Children
A reader, Daniel diSilva, sends us this short video he made about a musical summer camp at St. Anne Catholic Church in San Diego, CA. The camp immerses young people from age seven and up in the Church’s musical heritage of Gregorian chant and sacred polyphony. Watching the video, I was...
A serious take on popular music
Musically inclined readers may be interested in a new blog, Critic's Corner, by Dr. Kurt Poterack, a composer who directs the choirs and the Minor in Sacred Music at Christendom College. Poterack worked as an editor on The Adoremus Hymnal and edited the journal Sacred Music for several years,...
Mexican evangelists making gains in Ohio
In Columbus, Ohio, a campaign of door-to-door evangelization, conducted by a small group of religious sisters from Mexico, has produced remarkable results in bringing lapsed Catholics back to church. Working in Hispanic neighborhoods, the sisters bring a contagious enthusiasm for the faith, Father...
Pilgrimage - they don't make it like they used to
What’s the difference between a pilgrimage and a vacation? There was a time when going on a pilgrimage involved a great deal of sacrifice. Pilgrims traveled great distances to holy sites, often on foot, enduring great physical hardship to reach their destinations for some spiritual purpose...
Mass offerings: a useful survey
We recently received the following note from a reader, Father Albert Dello Russo: Dear Sirs: I am a priest graduate canon law student at the Catholic University of America. I am writing my thesis on the subject of Mass offerings [for the intention of a loved one] and their licit retention by...
Common Core vs. Catholic Core
Along with the general community of educators, more and more Catholic writers and groups are sounding the alarm about the new Common Core educational standards. While there are plenty of individual reasons to be wary or even hostile to the proposed standards, the Cardinal Newman Society is taking...
Legal cases on the HHS mandate & abortion clinic 'bubble zones': 2 must-read op-eds
Here are two short opinion pieces that are well worth reading: For National Review, Matt Bowman analyzes the legal argument put forward by the Obama administration in its battle against the Little Sisters of the Poor, and concludes that the argument is not only weak but...
Galileo and the Joy of History
Here’s a classic example of human egotism: we rarely take an interest in the past except insofar as it can serve us in the present. We are seldom patient enough to see history in all its messy complexity; we would rather torture it into a simplistic narrative to win some modern culture war,...
New Testament Phone App Available, Text & Audio, RSV-CE
If you’d like an app for your phone or other handheld device which will give you the complete text of the New Testament in the Revised Standard Version Catholic Edition (RSV-CE) along with an audio soundtrack read by actors, you can learn how to download it free at www.downloadjesus.com. The...
An extended weekend's worth of don't-miss commentary
Over the weekend (and stretching into today’s feast day), some unusually good commentary appeared online. I encourage Catholic readers to spend a few minutes with the following: Mary Ann Glendon—Harvard Law professor and former US Ambassador to the Holy See—previewed the US...
J. Budziszewski: The Underground Thomist
Catholic Culture readers may already be familiar with one of our favorite natural law scholars and Christian apologists, J. Budziszewski, two of whose books we have reviewed in the past (What We Can’t Not Know: A Guide and The Meaning of Sex). Budziszewski, a professor of government and...
Confraternity of the Holy Rosary
Second only to the Mass as the Catholic prayer par excellence, the Rosary is a staple of the spiritual life of many Catholic families and individuals. For several centuries it has nourished the faith of countless saints, Popes and ordinary Christian men and women. Out of all those who today...
Government Pressure and College Catholicism: Diamonds from Coal?
If you think God doesn’t work in mysterious ways, consider the increasing scrutiny of “religious” organizations by the American government when it comes to exemptions from various regulations which offend the well-formed conscience. It is a shifting landscape, and it would take...
Frs. Planty and McGraw call for sobriety and compassion in dealing with immigration
The immigration issue has been a point of bitter dispute among American Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and it is one area where conservative Catholic laypeople and the Church’s hierarchy have often failed to see eye to eye. In the Arlington Catholic Herald, Frs. Donald J. Planty and...
Intelligence, Religious Faith, and NFP
Natural Family Planning is connected with religious faith, but is raw human intelligence connected with atheism? I only group the two issues here because some interesting statistical studies have been done in both areas. One shows enhanced marriage satisfaction among those who use NFP. The other...
Public Discourse pushes back against porn
Common sense alone may lead us to question whether pornography as such can really constitute speech, or if it does, whether it is a kind of speech that is or ought to be protected by the Constitution, given a proper understanding of the First Amendment. In a recent two-part series for Public...
Weekend perspectives
Talking with the National Catholic Register, Father John Wauck lends some needed perspective to the feverish debates over public statements by Pope Francis: It’s important for everybody to calm down and look at the big picture. Pope Francis, the Successor of Peter, is the most...
Crisis on the Priesthood
Note that the title is not “Crisis in the priesthood”, but “Crisis on the Priesthood”. It refers to the fact that the folks at Crisis (an online magazine) are every bit as devoted to the Catholic priesthood as we are. They know that priests are an immense source of...
A Remarkable Catholic Lecture Series on the Arts in NYC
Let’s see if I’ve got this right. The Catholic Artists Society is an association of artists and media professionals, centered in New York City, working for the greater glory of God and the common good. The Catholic Center is a ministry of the Dominican Order at New York...
Adoption not Abortion: A Down Syndrome Miracle
In case you didn’t already hear this news: In early July, a woman learned through pre-natal testing that her baby had Down Syndrome. She went to an adoption agency and explained that she would abort the baby if a family could not be found to adopt her child in the next few days. In a little...
Want more commentary? Visit the Archives.
