Columns
A Gated Community
Today is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It puts before us one of the most familiar and beautiful descriptions of God. The prayers at Mass speak of Him as the “brave” and “kind” shepherd. For this reason, today is also World Day of…
The Fact That Corners You
There are things I did during my wife’s final illness that, had you asked me beforehand, I would have said I could never do. Not would not, could not. The distinction matters. When the time came, I did them. Not heroically – there was nothing…
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…