Just north of Bennington, VT, nineteen monks at the Charterhouse of the Transfiguration live and die in seclusion. There are no signs or markers pointing the way there. A bumpy side road passes a small reservoir, turns a corner, and the monastery appears, blank and quiet. At all times monks must “diligently keep themselves strangers to all worldly news.” They cite the model of Jacob, who didn’t see God face to face until he had sent his retinue forward and walked alone.     The post The Carthusians of Vermont appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more

Cardinal Gerhard Müller has rebuked local Belgian authorities who tried to shut down a conference he spoke at this week, comparing them to “absolutist rulers of the past.” The former head of the Vatican’s doctrinal office strongly criticized the mayor of Brussels and his supporters for their attempt to cancel the National Conservatism conference that took place April 16-17, calling them political activists who desired the withdrawal of the “fundamental right to freedom of assembly.”     The post Cardinal Müller rebukes Belgian mayor: Politics is about ‘dignity of man in the Image of ..read more

Christianity did not grow because of miracle working in the marketplaces (although there may have been much of that going on), or because Constantine said it should, or even because the martyrs gave it such credibility. It grew because Christians constituted an intense community, able to generate the “invincible obstinacy” [against paganism] that so offended the younger Pliny but yielded immense religious rewards. And the primary means of its growth was through the united and motivated efforts of the growing numbers of Christian believers, who invited their friends, relatives, and neighbors to ..read more

Of the approximately 4,800 employees in Vatican City, more than half work for the Holy See, i.e. in the authorities, media, or embassies of the Church’s administration. The others are employees of the 44-hectare Vatican State: gardeners, shop assistants in the supermarket or at the post office, museum attendants, and cleaners. A full-time work week is 36 hours.     The post The Vatican’s 36-hour week appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more

According to the data in a recent Pew Research study, neither Joe Biden nor Donald Trump is viewed favorably by a majority of Catholics but Biden is the more unpopular of the two. The polling of 12,000 U.S. adults found that only 35 percent of Catholics hold a favorable view of Biden while 64 percent have an unfavorable view of him. Trump is viewed favorably by 42 percent of Catholics and unfavorably by 57 percent.   The post Biden in trouble with Catholic voters appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more

Elementarz etyczyny (“The Ethics Primer”) is an underappreciated part of Karol Wojtyła’s pre-papal corpus.  Which is unfortunate, because it says much that’s quite important for us to hear today. It’s a collection of twenty essays – really columns – he wrote in 1957-58 for the Kraków Catholic newspaper, Tygodnik Powszechny.  They deal with a range of philosophical questions, from the source of morality to the role of struggle in social ethics, from asceticism to the compatibility of Christian ethics with authentic humanism.  Many of the essays are Christian jabs at the postulate ..read more

Death, the world tells us, is the final end of all things, and is the one universal law of which evasion is impossible; and this is true, not of the individual only, but of society, of nations, of civilization, and even, it would seem, ultimately of physical life itself. Every vital energy therefore that we possess can be directed not to the abolition, but only to the postponement of this final full close to which the most ecstatic created harmony must come at last. Our physicians cannot heal us, they can merely ward off death for a little. Our statesmen cannot establish an eternal federation ..read more

“We all have different truths,” Katherine Maher told a TED talk audience, explaining that there are “many different truths.” So she is not worried by the fact that, as she sees it, NPR reporters “are not focused on the truth.” She also denies the leftwing NPR is biased. And yet when a former NPR executive accused the network of flagrant political bias, she… fired him.     The post National Public Radio chief says reporters “are not focused on the truth” appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more

Seven major Italian sees – Florence, Genoa, Milan, Naples, Palermo, Turin, and Venice – are now no longer led by a Cardinal. And in Rome, where last week Cardinal Angelo De Donatis, Vicar of Rome, was transferred to the curia as the head of the Apostolic Penitentiary (a kind of elephant’s graveyard), it may be Rome itself will not be headed by a Cardinal Archbishop.     The post Is Italy’s influence in the Church diminishing? appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more

Mrs. Pakaluk, PhD interviewed 55 college-educated women from 10 states raising five or more children. With a grant from the Wheatley Institute and assistance on 20 percent of the interviews from Mormon colleague Emily Reynolds, assistant director at Wheatley and a part-time professor at Brigham Young University, they used open-ended questions to understand why these women affirm children as a gift without measure.   The post Katherine Pakaluk and the women defying the ‘birth dearth’ appeared first on The Catholic Thing ..read more