God’s Providence is a topic that gives us a fresh perspective on evil, and a correction on what many people attribute to God's will. The basic mistake in the latter is to think that everything that happens, happens according to God's will, t … [Read more...]
Articles
Catholic Higher Education: Ministry of the Head and Heart
September 29, 2015 by Fr. Richard Gribble, CSC
Nelson Mandela, the world renowned South African who led the fight to end apartheid in his nation, once stated, “Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world.” But what manner of education do we seek for our stu … [Read more...]
Twelve Lessons about the Financial Future of Catholic Schools
September 29, 2015 by Jim Lundholm-Eades
I have spoken with several bishops recently about the Catholic schools in their dioceses. The conversations brought home to me that what I recently heard from these bishops are the same questions, and the same challenges, that I have been … [Read more...]
Economic Injustice Hidden in Plain Sight
The Church and Usury
September 29, 2015 by Rob Agnelli
In the modern mind, the Church’s prohibition on usury falls under her many outdated teachings. Some even use it as proof that the Church can change her teachings. What the Church taught half a millennium ago, before the rise of modern c … [Read more...]
The Family as the Cultural Revolution
September 29, 2015 by Maria O'Shea
A week before his pastoral visit to Cuba and the United States, and his visit to the White House, Pope Francis spoke of a civilizational shift that is occurring in our times—a pivotal moment in which the mission of Christian families will p … [Read more...]
The Family: Expanded Sacrament
September 14, 2015 by Fr. John M. McDermott, SJ
It has become a trite truism to say that the traditional family is under attack. The sources of the onslaught may be traced back at least to the 19th century’s exaltation of Romantic infatuation and its accompanying insistence that the s … [Read more...]
Conscience, Freedom, and the “Law of Graduality” at the Synod on the Family
September 14, 2015 by Rev. Thomas V. Berg, PhD
Ideas have consequences—we well know. My concern here is a series of problematic and closely related conceptions of conscience, human freedom, the moral qualification of human acts, and progress in moral living that might be operative in t … [Read more...]
God’s Beauty Evokes Our Joy
September 14, 2015 by Fr. John Navone, SJ
God’s manifestation of his beauty/glory is both a grace, expressing his self-giving generosity, and a call to his joy. Beauty, a relational aspect of created or uncreated excellence, is always the self-manifestation or communication of e … [Read more...]
How Priests Can More Effectively Evangelize Catholic Men
September 14, 2015 by Matthew James Christoff
Though the New Evangelization has been a major effort in the Catholic Church for over forty years, it has failed to stem the disastrous losses of the faithful in the U.S. The New Evangelization is faltering: since 2000, 14 million Catholics … [Read more...]
Did Reno Get It Right?
Laudato Si in Its Centuries-Long Context
September 14, 2015 by Dr. Jeffrey Morrow, Ph.D.
I read with enthusiasm R.R. Reno’s First Things essay “The Return of Catholic Anti-Modernism” and, as always, appreciated his many insights. He helpfully pointed out some ways in which Pope Francis’s recent papal encyclical Laudato Si embodi … [Read more...]
Does Religion Have An Essential Place in Political Society?
September 14, 2015 by Raymond F. Hain III
It is often said that religion should be a private affair. I have been told this while I was still working. It shows a distinct ignorance of the basis of religion itself. Religion is not meant to be private. It never was. Christianity, … [Read more...]
The Merciful Call to Holiness
Addressing the Dualism Between Mercy and Doctrine in Cardinal Kasper’s Proposal
August 30, 2015 by Thomas Gourlay
Ever since it was first floated in his 1977 work, Cardinal Walter Kasper’s proposal to apply mercy to those suffering outside full communion with the Church through civil divorce and remarriage has been the source of much debate.[1. Walter K … [Read more...]
The Sacrament of Matrimony: A Conversation with Millennials
August 30, 2015 by Father Philip-Michael F. Tangorra, STL
Abbreviations LG: Lumen Gentium, Second Vatican Council Dogmatic Constitution on the Church MR: Missale Romanum (Roman Missal) (2010) SC: Sacrosanctum Concilium, Second Vatican Council Constitution on the Sacred … [Read more...]
Taking Up the Cross Daily by Praying with Our Senses
On the Role of Mortification in the Christian Life
August 30, 2015 by Dr. Jeffrey Morrow, Ph.D.
The term “mortification” has become increasingly less common in contemporary discussions of the spiritual life. One might say it is now nearly absent from such discussions. We hear about someone being “mortified” when they are humiliated, or … [Read more...]
The Gift of Law and the Law of Gift
August 30, 2015 by Dusty Gates
“I can’t understand why your Church makes you live that way,” a friend of mine once said to me, “it’s just not natural!” I fear that many, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, have a similar misunderstanding about nature, law, and the foundati … [Read more...]
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