The Catholic Thing
What World and Time Is This?
One of the better ways of trying to understand a writer or speaker is to imagine what audience he thinks he’s addressing, and what he believes that audience most needs to hear. For the popes of the last half century or so, I think I pretty much…
Of IVF and the Full Gospel of Life
President Trump recently announced measures to expand access to and reduce costs associated with in vitro fertilization (IVF). This is being billed as a pro-family and pro-life effort to help “American families have more babies.” While the…
Why St. John Henry Newman Matters Now: The Church’s Newest Doctor
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQLq8bPRg-o Robert Royal reports from St. Peter’s Square on the historic day Pope Leo declares St. John Henry Newman the 38th Doctor of the Church. Amid the celebrations on All Saints’ Day, Royal reflects on…
Is Pope Leo Francis 2.0? More Synodal Meetings & “Spectacles”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi0BBP5KuPY In this special episode of Prayerful Posse, Raymond Arroyo convenes Father Gerald Murray and Robert Royal from Rome to ask the question on many minds: Is Pope Leo Francis 2.0? The trio examines Pope…
Softly and Gently, Dearly-Ransom’d Soul
St. John Henry Newman, at age fifteen, embarked on a decades-long journey: in the words of his motto, ex imaginibus et umbris in veritatem (“From images and shadows into the truth”). For many years on his theological sojourn, Newman stood by…
All Hallows’ Eve – The Catholic Thing
Readers of books, and specifically fantastic books by Charles Williams and other Inklings, are summoned. I do not like them as much as I should, for I have never been a fan of fantasy literature, and I note that among the Inklings, only J.R.R.…
The Martyrs of Douai – The Catholic Thing
In June of 1577, an Englishman by the name of Cuthbert Mayne was taken under arrest by the High Sheriff of Cornwall and imprisoned in Launceston Castle to await trial for high treason. Mayne was born in Devon, in southwest England, and had been…
Where Did Francis Go Awry?
When I retired after a decade of service at the Holy See, things were not going well. That was in 2016. Truth be told, things were already not going well even under Benedict XVI. The Roman Curia is a bureaucratic mess. But magisterial messes are…
About All That Rights Talk
Something that should more often be understood is that every assertion of a right involves a concomitant obligation on others either to do or refrain from doing something. If I have a right to health care, then someone has an obligation to…
Of Muslim Cowherds, Catholic Martyrs, and Institutional Decline
It’s a common today to lament the widespread loss of faith in institutions: governments, schools, colleges and universities, courts, medical authorities, religions, and (not least) the Catholic Church. There are many reasons, good and bad, for…