Catholic Church
A Note on ‘Roma Aeterna’
Rome, if not quite the “Eternal City,” is nearly 2,800 years old and counting. I first encountered it in the 1970s, visiting my wife’s uncle, a priest who served in the Congregation (now the Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. What I…
A Cancelled Catholic Philosopher in a Turbulent Age
“Our foreign-born citizens must permit us to say that they have been imprudent and have committed some serious mistakes,” so writes an esteemed Catholic social philosopher about the immigration question. “It is wrong to claim as a natural right…
St. Isidore Runs the Numbers
It’s easy to get lost in Biblical numerological speculation, as even a cursory study of the Church Fathers proves. St. Irenaeus attempted to explain the number of the beast from Revelation 13:17–18 by adding the numerical value of the Greek…
Knocking Heads – The Catholic Thing
Last week, King Charles III of England declined to issue an Easter greeting to the people of the church he is supposed to lead, as Defensor fidei. He does, however, make sure to mark Islamic holidays, which has led some to speculate that he is…
Simeon’s Prophesy v. The Blob
And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. (Luke 2:34) By 1973, there’d been one papal trip to the U.S. –…
For God and Country – Or for Myself?
I recently discovered All Creatures Great and Small, a 1930s-set British comedy-drama chronicling a trio of veterinarians working in rural Yorkshire. In the latest episode that I watched, Great Britain declares war on Nazi Germany and the draft…
John Paul II and our Elder (Jewish) Brothers
Forty years ago, Pope John Paul II made a historic visit to the Great Synagogue of Rome. He was the first bishop of Rome to visit a synagogue (though presumably Peter, at least, made an appearance now and again). John Paul’s visit, so pregnant…
The Politics of Shill – The Catholic Thing
The pope may be many things in many contexts, but he should avoid becoming a shill for the Democratic Party. This is how he came across when he delivered a political statement just after he had been visited by David Axelrod, Obama’s…
A Man in Opposition: Remembering St. Magnus
Today marks the death, over nine centuries ago, of St. Magnus, a jarl or earl of Orkney, those windswept isles off the coast of mainland Scotland. His holy life is recounted in the Orkneyinga Saga, which captures, in spare and forceful language,…
On a Darkling Plain – The Catholic Thing
I’ve been in Lisbon and, the past few days, Rome presenting translations of my recent book The Martyrs of the New Millennium. It’s encouraging that Christians in Europe are starting to realize the virulence and extent of anti-Christian acts…