2026
How They Died: Martyrdom of the Apostles
In The Cost of Discipleship (1937), Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes that Christ invited St. Peter “to the supreme followship of martyrdom for the Lord he had denied. . .thereby forgiving him all his sins. In the life of Peter, grace and discipleship…
Comedies, Earthly and Divine – The Catholic Thing
A good friend and long-time prominent Catholic commentator called me this week to ask my perspective on current American foreign policy. Not for the first time, I had nothing coherent to offer. This has been the situation for some 15 years now.…
Freedom in the Ties That Bind
We Americans have a thing about freedom. We didn’t invent freedom – even in the limited sense of political freedom – though we sometimes like to think (and occasionally act) as though we have an unbreakable monopoly on it. Land of the free, and…
Eternal Precepts for Navigating Newfangled Things
What hysteria-creating, Wall Street-swirling, media-obsessing New Thing awaits us in 2026? It was COVID in 2020, ChatGPT in 2022, Generative AI in 2023, DOGE in 2025. The next New Thing is anyone’s guess, but if it is like its predecessors, it…
A Consistory to Revitalize the College of Cardinals
During a decade of service at the Vatican Secretariat of State, I was constantly perplexed by the Holy See’s unwillingness or inability to utilize already existing ecclesial structures for effective governance. As the Cardinals meet in Rome over…
For Cardinals in Consistory This Week: Mending Wall
Pope Leo has summoned the world’s Cardinals to a Consistory this week, a return to normal practice that was mostly sidelined for the past dozen years in favor of “synodal” gatherings. So now that the Jubilee Year has concluded, the current pope…
‘Nations shall walk by your light’
As should be obvious by now, the Solemnity of the Epiphany (celebrated in the Extraordinary Form and in all the Eastern Churches on January 6 and on January 4 in the United States this year in the Ordinary Form) is the day for the Gentiles at…
Bishops, I Beg You, Take Heed
My wife likes well-made and handsome objects for the house, so whenever I look for gifts to give her, I go to antique stores, or to stores selling unwanted objects from estate sales. Even if it’s only a box for trinkets, I make sure it’s joined…
The Mother of God, Virgin in the Act of Giving Birth
Did the Virgin Mary suffer the trauma of labor and its pains? Not a few preachers at Christmas Mass speak as if Mary did. But a long tradition in the Church presents a very different picture. First, what does Scripture say? “She gave birth to…
Gate of Heaven and Mother of God
Mary is called the Gate of Heaven, because it was through her that our Lord passed from heaven to earth. The Prophet Ezekiel, prophesying of Mary, says, “The gate shall be closed, it shall not be opened, and no man shall pass through it, since…