John Horvat II: Calling a Catholic president heretical clears the air around debate by dispelling the theatrics surrounding “Catholic” figures who betray Church teaching. Bishop Thomas Paprocki recently pointed to a crisis in the Church with his article “Imagining a Heretical Cardinal.” The learned canon lawyer masterfully laid out his case by quoting the positions of a “hypothetical” […]
Francis X. Maier: The media revel in trashing the Catholic Church for its patterns of clergy sexual abuse but are in denial that the overwhelming majority of abusers are gay. A number of lessons can be drawn from a recent Washington Post story. On March 9, the Post published a nearly 4,000-word story on the work of Catholic Laity and Clergy […]
Note: Two articles by Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego have caused a major stir in the American Church, even leading another American bishop, Thomas J. Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, to “imagine a heretical cardinal” quoting from, without naming, McElroy. Much further commentary has occurred, and much more is needed, which is why we publish here […]
Robert Royal: It’s painful for a Catholic to have to say it, but needs saying out of fidelity to the truth: the Francis Effect has resulted in a Church that has not, as hoped, attracted people from outside and has left those within even more confused and divided. Exactly ten years ago this morning to the […]
David Carlin: Today’s atheists and sexual revolutionists have outdone their mid-Victorian age predecessors. They have made it so that if you do not laud them, you have harmed them. It is now about 350 years that the war against Christianity commenced in the English-speaking world. It began with Deism during the reigns of King Charles II […]
Stephen P. White: If Cardinal Robert McElroy has his way, we’ll be left with a vision of Christian life which lacks any hint of the freshness of the Gospel. Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego has penned a lengthy reflection (available here) on how the synodal process might address the exclusion of certain categories of people. The essay […]
Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap.: We need evermore deeply to repent of our sins, confess them humbly, and resolve more ardently never to commit them again. It’s been widely reported that Pope Francis told seminarians from Barcelona, Spain, in an unscripted talk, that they must not “be clerical, to forgive everything.” Such must be the case […]
Note: This column first appeared on January 24, 2020, before the Supreme Court decision in Dobbs v. Jackson last year, which reversed the Court’s finding in Roe v. Wade that there was a federal right to abortion – and returned questions about abortion to the individual States. Three years later, as the debates continue in many States, there is […]
Fr. Peter M. J. Stravinskas: Fr. Frank Pavone has expressed the hope that the next pope could undo the damage done by the present one. He should take comfort from the experience of St. John Henry Cardinal Newman. For more than half a century, we have been hearing of “the spirit of Vatican II,” which has […]
Francis X. Maier: If we Christians who still have the blessings of religious freedom sleep, then the world our grandchildren inherit will be a world increasingly without the Cross, and without the truth. History is a great teacher. According to oral tradition, when Emperor Justinian walked into the completed Church of the Holy Wisdom (Hagia Sophia) […]
David Warren: Just as the job of a physics professor is to teach what he cannot completely understand, we must remain modest when confronted with supernatural things. And know what we cannot know. “One cannot understand modern physics,” a possibly wise particle physicist said to me some years ago. I took him at his word. I […]
Stephen P. White: Being a father is an unmerited chance to participate in the love of God the Father. A chance to be a glass through which, however darkly, children can glimpse Him. There’s no shortage of conversations these days about men and masculinity. Everyone seems to be wondering: “What’s up with men?” From transgender debates, […]
David Warren: The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is a thing. Who’d have guessed progressive modernity would be humanity’s end? The Voluntary Human Extinction Movement is officially a thing, I learn from the usual reliable media sources. Its founder, Les Knight, advocates intelligent non-breeding. While most World. Economic Forum and environmental crusaders only want the world’s population […]
All of us at The Catholic Thing wish all of you and your families a Blessed Thanksgiving. Romano Guardini: Who knows – if we may speak in this way – what God feels when we not merely perform our duty toward Him, but give Him love. Let us attempt to obtain a view of this gradually disappearing virtue […]
Roberto de Mattei: The mission of the Church and of the Vicar of Christ on earth is this and no other: to recall the saving truths that the world ignores or despises. As of October 21, Italy has a new government: the best possible government at the worst historical moment since the birth of the Italian […]