2026
Evelyn Waugh’s America – The Catholic Thing
This month makes 60 years since the death of the British author Evelyn Waugh, known both for his superb satires on the modern world and his ability to communicate the beauty and goodness of Catholicism. So, a sharp irony marked his life. Satire…
Mercy’s Wondrous Exchange – The Catholic Thing
John Paul II died on the night of April 2, 2005. It was Easter Saturday and thus the vigil of Divine Mercy Sunday. One could hardly imagine a more fitting moment for him to go to the house of the Father. Almost five years earlier, on April 30,…
The Dignity of Work in Catholic Social Thought
Catholic social teaching sees work not as a burden to be engineered away, but as a central part of life wherein the human person is formed. From Genesis to Laborem exercens, the Church teaches that work’s dignity lies not in how new or…
Are Americans Immoral? – The Catholic Thing
Yes. But so have many people been throughout history. And now some good news, although it’s the only good news. The Pew Research Center recently released a report, What Do Americans Consider Immoral? (We should be cautious about that verb,…
‘The Sanctifying Power of this Night’
“And it came to pass – when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses’ hand, when he came down from the mount – that Moses knew not that the skin of his face sent forth beams while He talked with him.”…
On Doing the Right Thing
For Christians, this week is the heart of our liturgical year. Easter week is a time of gratitude and celebration; a time of joy that rises above the frictions of everyday life and reminds us of our eternal destiny. But of course, a fallen…
Space Exploration and the Cosmic Liturgy
Around the corner from my old office in the Apostolic Palace is the Torre dei Venti, a sixteenth-century tower housing the sundial Pope Gregory XIII used to correct the Julian calendar. Aided by a team of brilliant Jesuits, Gregory tracked the…
The Reconsecration of Man – The Catholic Thing
The days immediately following Easter are usually a period of interior peace for believers, but also mystery. The Resurrection’s afterglow, of course, but also a lingering question, especially this year as wars and civic unrest trouble the whole…
Easter: God, Love, Life – The Catholic Thing
During the first half of the 20th century, there emerged an extraordinary constellation of English Catholic writers, many of them converts, who had the great gift of being able to explicate the Catholic faith on a popular level without watering…
The Lord’s Descent into Hell
What is happening? Today there is a great silence over the earth, a great silence, and stillness, a great silence because the King sleeps; the earth was in terror and was still, because God slept in the flesh and raised up those who were…