Bevil Bramwell OMI: Catholicism is not progressive in the modern sense, but in promoting the union of human beings with God and each other. In our culture, there are many abused terms, but perhaps the most abused is “progress.” The word comes originally from the Latin for “going forward.” The Renaissance gave the word a distinctly subjective […]
David Warren writes about the attention being given to the fate of toddler Alfie Evans. To oppose his death is to be an enemy of the state. As I write, the fate of the baby Alfie Evans in England is (or was) open. It is “breaking news,” and there are two things to know about that. […]
In recent decades, hundreds of millions of people (mainly in Asia) have, by their own ingenuity and with the infusion of at least a modicum of freedom to pursue their livelihoods, climbed out of entrenched poverty. The desperately poor as a percentage of global population have reached unprecedented lows. This is the very good news […]
James V. Schall, S.J: Christ, the Word in the Trinity, made two great statements about truth: 1) “The truth shall make you free;” 2) “I am the truth.” The December 30, 1996 Ripley’s Believe It or Not contained the following item: “The SkyDome in Toronto uses over ten miles of zippers to fasten its artificial turf.” Off hand, […]
Pope Francis celebrated and preached at the Chrism Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica on Holy Thursday morning. He addressed the concelebrating priests on the themes of the closeness of God and the closeness that priests should have to their people. This priestly closeness is “an attitude that engages the whole person.” He praised street priests“who are ‘close’, available, […]
William Kilpatrick notes that many (including the pope) adhere to an outdated, multicultural view of Islam, which has lately reverted to its 7th-century militancy. I recently received an email from a reader who took issue with my skeptical view of Islam. Between 1963 and 1965, he worked for the Peace Corps in a Muslim area of […]
Note: This column was written and uploaded prior to the U.S. attack on Syria late last night [April 13, 2018]. The questions it raises about further developing just war theory, however, remain current – now perhaps even more than earlier. – Robert Royal Over the centuries, “just war theory” was proposed and developed by a […]
Robert Royal notes that in the pope’s new, inconsistent apostolic exhortation, Gaudete et Exsultate, much in Catholic tradition is well-presented. Among the many sad consequences of the divisions Pope Francis has exacerbated within the Church, we’re now forced to live with an undeniable reality: even when he says good things – and there are many such in […]
Bevil Bramwell OMI on meeting the true Christ, who made the world and is in it. To place Him anywhere but at the center is the gravest possible mistake. One of the underappreciated sides of John Paul II’s teaching is something that applies to all of us. In his encyclicals Fides et Ratio and Ex Corde Ecclesiae, his overall […]
Anthony Esolen writes that the Church must not instruct us how we can be comfortable with sin. We must not nibble at the bad fruit. I’m meditating on the most recent debacle at my old place of work, Providence College. A young man has been harassed (crowds outside of his room several nights in a row, […]
It has become clear to me I could never be appointed to a federal office. Why not? Because I’m a teacher, and I talk too much. I couldn’t get elected to federal office for the same reason Larry Summers got shot out of the presidency of Harvard like a circus clown out of a cannon: […]
Bevil Bramwell OMI: People (and nations) who lose their sense of history lose their way. And the end of history (and our own lives) is eternal happiness. There is a very interesting line in the Book of Isaiah: “Thus says the Lord to his anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I grasp, Subduing nations before him, […]
Brad Miner read some reflections by Pope Francis on the Lord’s Prayer and concludes we’ve come a long way from Benedict XVI and St. John Paul II. Pope Francis has allowed to be published a “book” about what a priest in my parish calls “our family prayer,” Our Father: Reflections of the Lord’s Prayer, which arose from […]
Fr. Dennis Garrou, a former Anglican (now Catholic) priest, shows how Anglicans went wrong and prays that Catholicism won’t suffer the same “spinectomy.” Twenty years ago, before I had the privilege of entering the Catholic Church through the Pastoral Provision for Former Anglican Clergy, I was an Episcopal priest during the “ecclesiacide” engineered by Bishop […]
After delivering a homily indicting Catholic Senators (Democrat and Republican) who voted against legislation that would render illegal the killing of unborn babies with a developed nervous system, I received a response in a letter: I look forward to hearing your next political homily, similar to the one on abortion a few weeks ago. Please […]