Catholicism
Pope Leo and the Limits of Government
A few decades of teaching at the college level have demonstrated to me that students are increasingly unprepared to study political theory. This is neither an insult nor is it the students’ fault. In some ways, it is a reversion to the mean,…
The Smell of a Skunk and the Odor of Sanctity
I was speaking to one of my Capuchin confreres recently who had just returned from visiting his family. He remarked that there were a number of skunks around his sister’s home. These little creatures can be quite cute. Skunks are notorious,…
Newman and the Joy of the Dance
The big Newman moment of the summer was the declaration by Pope Leo XIV that St. John Henry would soon be declared a Doctor of the Church. I had another Newman moment a few weeks beforehand in a cinema watching, of all things, The Life of Chuck.…
Parallel Lives: With Faith and Without
Consider the parallel lives of John and Bill, who each have three children, reside in the suburbs, and commute to the city to work. John is agnostic and indifferent to things religious. Bill is a practicing Catholic; he attends Mass each Sunday…
How St. Augustine Converted to Christianity
St. Augustine’s conversion began, on his own telling, when, as a nineteen-year-old boy – roughly the age of a college sophomore today – he encountered a dialogue by Cicero called the Hortensius: Quite definitely it changed the direction of my…
Politics and the Birthday Party
July 2026 marks the 250th birthday of the United States. Alas, the celebration next year will come in the midst of yet another election cycle, and at a time of deep cultural divisions. We need a “common good” politics more than ever. But…
On Not Giving Extremely Little
During his recent “Address to the Participants in the Social Week of Peru,” Pope Leo made some observations well worth noting: “Let us understand that all social action of the Church must have as its center and goal the proclamation of the…
Answering the Right Question – The Catholic Thing
Is our Lord avoiding the question? At first glance, it appears so. The man in today’s Gospel (Luke 13:22-30) asks a simple yes/no question: “Will only a few people be saved?” Jesus doesn’t answer, doesn’t say yes or no. Perhaps to the man’s…
Wisdom about Human Flourishing – The Catholic Thing
Much of our knowledge is inevitably quantitative and additive, but sometimes a good book contains such necessary, valuable forms of human knowledge while also touching, and being graced by, such qualitative insight that it registers as human…
Pope Leo and the Augustinian legacy
We’re a few days into the Novena to St. Augustine for his feast on August 28. To my mind, any excuse will suffice to talk about the thought of that great saint. His feast day in the first year of Augustinian Leo XIV’s pontificate simply can’t be…