Various commentaries I have read so far about the latest declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith have been marked by a kind of relief. Some feared that the dicastery would be forging ahead in controversy and were surprised by the orthodoxy (o tempora, o mores) of the summary of teachings it represents. I think that one aspect of the declaration has been ignored. Source ..read more

Everyone has “windows of opportunity” in their life. For most men and women, they are about fairly similar things at fairly similar times: you start speaking between 1 and 2; at the crucible of middle school, social skills development; puberty occurring between 8 and 15; the golden window for marriage, perhaps 22-30, followed by the best years for pregnancies; a man’s earning peak between… Source ..read more

The dropping of the atomic bomb was evil. For the average conservative commentator, this comment automatically causes a knee-jerk reaction with the same old platitudes. For decades, the American Right has been the defender of our usage of the atomic bomb, with either “it saved more American lives” or “it was the lesser of two evils” being some of the strongest candidates. Source ..read more

Beneath the papal altar in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, among the grottos and tombs, is the chapel of the Madonna della Bocciata. Inspiring. Revered. But often overlooked. Few of the five million annual Vatican visitors venture down the steps to tour the grottos, and of those that do, many miss the fresco of the Madonna placed there in the 1600s. Painted by Pietro Cavallini (c. 1250-1330)… Source ..read more

Catholics Answers just announced the release of the “Father Justin” interactive AI app, which will “provide users with faithful and educational answers to questions about Catholicism.” I have to admit, I have a lot of conflicting thoughts on this. As a former tech geek, I still get excited by advances in technology. On just that basis, it’s amazing what these apps can do. I took “Father… Source ..read more

What would cause a man (and in almost every case it is a man) to burn himself alive? Two men in recent months have publicly done so: one protesting the Israeli assault on Hamas, the other’s motive somewhat unclear but somehow connected to the trial of Donald Trump. In the Roman Martyrology, we often read of the faithful being burned alive by authorities who feared Christ and His ability to… Source ..read more

A few years ago, my dad got a notification on his computer that it had a virus. He followed the notification’s prompts to protect his computer and dialed the number flashing on his screen. The person who answered the phone expressed deep concern and asked my dad a few questions to gain remote access to the apparently sick computer in a ruse to assist him. Unsurprisingly for most readers… Source ..read more

In a recent essay, I argued that Americans—both secular and, increasingly, Catholic ones—experience a “flattened” sense of time. Time just simply “passes by” with little to distinguish it, with our increasingly attenuated civil holidays (including those shorn of their religious and/or historical content) trying to contend against a brutally “immanentized” approach to time. To remedy this… Source ..read more

It is hard to say which have been the lowest points in the history of the Church. The fourteenth century was pretty wretched. The papacy, exiled from Rome to Avignon, was largely in the pocket of the French monarchy. Then, after the pope finally returned to Rome, the French cardinals set up a rival pope, technically an anti-pope, at Avignon. If anything, however, the eighteenth century would be… Source ..read more

HBO’s Real Time host and longtime leftist Bill Maher made headlines this past weekend when he chastised Republicans’ ever-shifting stance on abortion in a panel discussion on the Arizona Supreme Court’s recent landmark ruling upholding a near-total abortion ban. The Arizona Court took up the case in response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade, which Republicans, including former President Trump… Source ..read more