Columns
The Church Is Not For Burning
When Notre Dame de Paris almost burned down in 2019, owing to a fire started (accidentally?) by workmen, the world was stunned by the near loss of one of the West’s iconic monuments – and a religious landmark at that. But churches around the…
Lumen Christi
However fervent or fitful, our Lenten journey is moving toward its culmination. Of the many symbolic riches of the Paschal Triduum perhaps none resonates so affectively as the raising high of the Paschal Candle in the darkened church. And the…
Guardian Angels: Not Just Kid-Stuff
Like many people years ago, as a child, my brother and I, together with our dad, always prayed in our “night prayers” the traditional prayer to our guardian angels: “Angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God’s love entrusts me here, ever this…
Redeeming Nietzsche’s ‘Last Man’ – The Catholic Thing
Friedrich Nietzsche is notorious for his theory of the Übermensch, the superior man who rises above the constraints of morality and mediocrity. But his theory of the “last man” has proven to be far more prophetic – and relevant. A kind of…
Athletes Acknowledging God – The Catholic Thing
The New York Times reported the words, but the Wall Street Journal didn’t. When Bam Adebayo, two days ago, was asked to describe the moment when he scored 83 points in an NBA game, second only to Wilt Chamberlain’s 100 points, he said, “Man, I…
What Fertility Really Means – The Catholic Thing
I’ll get right to the point. Leigh Snead’s new book Infertile but Fruitful is one of the finest personal testimonies I’ve read in the past decade. It’s a “simple” story in the best sense: concise, intimate, utterly frank, and memorable. It…
The Body of This Death Comes for the Archbishop
I wouldn’t describe myself as a “fan” of science fiction. I shrug my shoulders at Star Wars and Star Trek, and became so frustrated with Frank Herbert’s Dune that I barely finished it. Nevertheless, I confess a certain guilty fascination with…
Politics Does Not Equal Government
The 250th birthday of the United States is a good time to remember that 1776 was the year of a new nation, not a new government. It would take another eleven years for the Founders to formulate what the government would look like, and two more…
Of Forty Days and the Gospel Plough
In the season of Lent, the Church enters the wilderness to fast and abstain. It is a time of testing. The number forty often indicates this throughout the Scriptures. “Forty days” signals a time when God tests the hearts of His people, so that…
Evangelizing Bedlam – The Catholic Thing
In one of the great ironies of linguistic history, the English word “bedlam,” suggesting frenzy, madness, chaos, and noise, comes from what was then the common British pronunciation of the sacred name Bethlehem, in the Hospital of Saint Mary in…