Catholic Church
America Must Not Become a Land of Hate
There are terrible injustices in our country. There are people in jail who don’t belong there and people on the street who belong in jail. But there is no country on earth where one is likely to get a fairer trial or where one will have a…
Five for the Fourth – The Catholic Thing
Outright Love for This Land Robert Royal In Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo invokes the Biblical story of Nehemiah rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem as a poignant alternative to the Tower of Babel’s effort to reach Heaven without God. It’s a good…
Jefferson and the 4th of July
In the early days of July 1826, Thomas Jefferson “marshalled his will toward the realization of one last mission: He wanted to survive until the Fourth of July.” So writes Jon Meacham in his marvelous biography Thomas Jefferson: The Art of…
SSPX: Schism and Excommunication – The Catholic Thing
The canonically illegal consecration/ordination (the terms are interchangeable) of four new bishops by two Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) bishops who were themselves illegally ordained by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre 38 years ago is a renewed wound…
Human Dignity and America’s 250th
Like many Americans, I’ve been refreshing my knowledge of the American Revolution in anticipation of July 4 this year. And, at the same time, I’m finding myself comparing the Founders’ notions of human dignity with the way the term is frequently…
Is the Church of England in a Death Spiral?
The Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot (born in St. Louis), wrote “The Hollow Men” in 1925. The poem concludes with this haunting quatrain: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang…
Is the Church of England in a Death Spiral?
The Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot (born in St. Louis), wrote “The Hollow Men” in 1925. The poem concludes with this haunting quatrain: This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang…
Worth & Worship – The Catholic Thing
What is a thing worth? In economics, it’s relative. Prices fluctuate. Markets rise and fall. A thing is worth what someone’s willing to pay for it. Back in the 1980s, my LPs were worth a lot. With the arrival of CDs, they were worth almost…
What Does Love Look Like?
It’s a commonplace observation that most people think more readily in pictures than in abstract concepts, and that stories move and transform us in ways that logical arguments often don’t. God, who of course knows this, therefore has revealed…
A Perfect Model of Fatherhood
Excerpted from Address of John Paul II to the members of the Pontifical Council for the Family, June 4, 1999 The theme of fatherhood, which you have chosen for this plenary meeting, refers to the third year of preparation for the Great Jubilee,…