Throughout history, there have been a number of religious military orders. These orders dwelt in the shadow of the Church, shaping it through their deeds and accomplishments. One such order was the Teutonic Knights. There were three major religious military orders formed during the Crusades. The most known were the Templar Knights founded around 1119, […]
A drama has been unfolding in Germany over the last month that has seen the leading conservative prelate in the country, Cologne’s Cardinal Joachim Meisner, seem to suggest that it is permissible in Catholic hospitals to administer the morning-after pill (MAP) to rape victims. The Bishops of Germany will be discussing the matter further at […]
I teach the First Communion class at my parish in a large room in the basement of the church. For safety reasons, I ask the parents to come downstairs after class and pick up their child. I tell the kids that if they don’t see their parent, they have to stay with me and we’ll […]
In early 2012, the Pontifical University in Rome held one of its most important conferences ever. “Towards Healing and Renewal” was an international symposium, sponsored by the Vatican , devoted to the terrible abuse crisis in the Church. What made the event so extraordinary is that is was opened, not by a high-ranking prelate but […]
The latest action from the Obama administration is but another sleight of hand designed to ignore the objections of those who have expressed concerns about providing insurance coverage to employees for birth control services while claiming that quite the opposite is true. On February 1, the Obama administration announced a “compromise” on the contraceptive mandate […]
I think we Catholics approach the sacraments from a flawed analysis. We view them as mere “booster shots” for the already holy. So long as we are without mortal sin, we go to the sacraments, get our booster shot of infused grace, and we become holier. While there is certainly this aspect to the sacraments, there needs to be a lot more to the sacraments if we are taking the Biblical, historical, and magisterial evidence seriously.
Recently, there has been a lot of talk about redefining marriage and love. I believe this talk is necessary, but not in the way the culture proposes. If there is one truth we need to learn today to sustain marriages and love it would be this teaching of the Catholic Church: accept no limitations on […]
The Lost Medallion is a new family movie about the value of friendship and self-confidence. It begins with Daniel Anderson (Alex Kendrick-Facing the Giants, Courageous) visiting the home of an old woman who fosters many children. A little girl asks him to tell them a story. He agrees, and incorporates into his tale the some […]
For the past several weeks, Catholics around the Internet have been talking about a scandal, and, surprisingly, they’re more or less in agreement. It is a real-life scandal of a bishop who forgave a criminal for robbing from him. It is a fictional scandal of a criminal who broke parole, became a successful businessman and […]
After Lance Armstrong admitted that he cheated with performance enhancing drugs, I was waiting for the transhumanists to claim him as their own. It didn’t take long. The title of this Wired piece says it all: “Lance Armstrong should be celebrated as a pioneer in human enhancement.” The premise? Sure Armstrong broke the rules, but […]
In 1961, three months before Barack Obama’s birth, President John F. Kennedy gave a speech to members of the media. There is, said he, “little value in ensuring the survival of our nation if our traditions do not survive with it.”[1] Does JFK’s assertion apply today? In my judgment it is both pertinent and accurate, given […]
“Transforming the very fabric of society;” and “radically reordering society’s view of reality”: these are what “being queer” means to the ideologues behind the homosexual political movement that is currently sweeping through legislatures around the world. Is this the insane ranting of a right-wing Christian conspiracy theorist? Is it yet another “attack” by wicked Pope […]
Oftentimes the seasons of Lent and Advent are filled with our good intentions about what we will do, what we will read, and the changes we will make in our daily lives. The weeks stretch out ahead of us and we begin with great plans and an eagerness to experience the holy season in a […]
It’s hard to decide whether this story should be filed under “The Lord works in mysterious ways” or “Be careful what you wish for; you may get it.” A woman who goes by Pastor Alois Bell of Truth in the Word Deliverance Ministries, a storefront ministry in downtown St. Louis, claims she uses social media […]
“Your freedom is likely to be someone else’s harm.” So says bioethicist Daniel Callahan of the Hastings Center, responding to the recent controversy over provisions in Obamacare that penalize smokers. In the era of the Bloomberg ban on Big Gulps, the proper role, if any, that government should have in the lifestyle decisions of […]
I live in Christchurch, New Zealand. A city that, over the past few years, has been struck by several large earthquakes. As a result our city doesn’t have that many buildings left standing. Most of our churches are gone. Masses are celebrated in halls or parish centers. Whole parishes themselves don’t exist and our city is […]
Still pining over our combined pilgrimage-vacation to Rome last year, my wife and I decided to participate in the Year of Italian Culture 2013 at the National Gallery here in Washington, D.C. There we were able to gaze upon Michelangelo’s David-Apollo, which is on loan to the Gallery from the Museo Nazionale del Bargello, Florence, through March 3. […]
I’m turning into my father. My father was born in 1933. He was a paperboy in the days when paperboys stood on city corners and shouted “Extra!” In my father’s home, the newspaper still is king. He has two delivered daily. He reads every inch of both. He does the crossword puzzles in both, too […]
Walking among a half million fellow pro-lifers on January 25 in the nation’s capital, one could not help but reflect on the irony: We marched to remember the 40th anniversary of the Supreme Court’s abolition of every state law against abortion in Roe v. Wade, while only four days previously the same streets were filled with […]
For many contemporary Catholics, the Second Vatican Council is the most important, if not the only, Church Council in the history of the Church. For them, it brought the Church out of a rigorist darkness and enlightened it by its contact with modernity. If you would like to think that, you are wrong, but go […]
A life of holiness is not something that is relegated to the cloister and the monastery. It is for everyone. This is something I learned from studying the lives of the saints, from learning to pray with the Church, and from the Scriptures themselves. We are all called to be perfect as our heavenly Father […]
In the UK he is a household name. He has done a beautiful series of documentaries for BBC on the world’s wildlife. He was even knighted by the Queen. And he is a bona-fide, certified, take-no-prisoners people hater. The hater in question, Sir David Attenborough, made the news last week by comparing the human race […]
