It is exceedingly difficult to stand before mourners assembled for a funeral Mass, look them in the eye one at a time, and sing—with them, to them, and sometimes for them—of truth, love, and life. Still, this is a duty that must not be neg … [Read more...]
Articles
Religious Freedom, Slavery, and Usury
Three Challenges to the Hermeneutic of Continuity
January 12, 2015 by Dr. William Newton
Early on in his pontificate, Benedict XVI laid down the challenge of reading the Church’s teaching according to a hermeneutic of continuity, rather than according to what he characterized as a hermeneutic of rupture.[1. Benedict XVI, A … [Read more...]
Why Me?
January 12, 2015 by Rev. William J. Nessel, OSFS
“I am the potter, you are the clay.” An American couple who like to shop for antiques entered a store in England. They spotted an exceptional tea cup. As the clerk handed them the cup, it suddenly spoke up, “I haven’t always been a tea cup. … [Read more...]
To Listen to the Voice of God
January 12, 2015 by Brent Withers
We all have a desire to be listened to and taken seriously. There is nothing more frustrating than not being listened to, when someone does not either look at us when we talk to him, or let us finish our sentences. It leaves us feeling … [Read more...]
Why Do Priests Need Philosophy?
December 27, 2014 by Fr. James V. Schall, SJ
When he (Aquinas) was not sitting, reading a book, he walked round and round the cloister, and walked fast and even furiously, a very characteristic action of men who fight their battles in the mind. (G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas.) … [Read more...]
A Holy Priesthood for a Holy People
December 27, 2014 by R. Thomas Richard, PhD
A groaning in the heart, of one seeking and waiting for God, is appropriate for Advent. A thirsting in the heart for his living water, in this world of dryness, is proper. In this waiting for the holy season of The Incarnation, however, a … [Read more...]
Sacrifice, Substitution, and Suffering
December 27, 2014 by Dusty Gates
Sacrifice is troublesome for us fallen humans. It is not only the inconvenience or effort that troubles us so much, because we are sometimes willing to be inconvenienced or troubled for good reason; that is, a reason that serves our own … [Read more...]
Parables of the Generous One
December 27, 2014 by Fr. John Navone, SJ
Our faith-conviction that God is the primordial Source and Resource for all creation and human life inspires our gratitude for all as gift, and our boundless hope that the best is yet to come. The abundance of God is the ultimate Source and … [Read more...]
The “Rhetoric” of Relativism
Exposing the Logical Contradiction
December 27, 2014 by Jayson M. Brunelle, MEd, CAGS
Relativism: (1) the wholesale philosophical rejection of the existence of any objective, absolute, or universal truths whatsoever (specifically referred to as cognitive/epistemological relativism or radical skepticism); or (2) the … [Read more...]
The Holy Spirit and the Contemporary Reform of the Catholic Church
December 15, 2014 by Father Philip-Michael F. Tangorra, STL
Status Quaestionis Ecclesia semper reformanda est (The Church is always to be reformed). This phrase originated in the Nadere Reformatiae of the Dutch Reform during the 1600s, and first appeared in the 1674 work, Beschouwinge van Zion … [Read more...]
Guadalupe and God’s Word
A Biblical-Theological Interpretation of Her Apparition
December 15, 2014 by Paulino Forte
When Miguel Sánchez published Imagen de la Virgen María in 1648, he did more than document the first apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary in the New World. Scholars agree that his account became a lens through which clergy and faithful i … [Read more...]
A Silence about Mary
December 15, 2014 by Fr. Charles Kestermeier, SJ
Mary is very central to the Gospel’s infancy narratives, but after Cana she almost disappears: we see her in the “Who are my mother and my brothers and my sisters?” passage, at the foot of the cross, and as being present at the Pentecost eve … [Read more...]
The Nativity of Christ
Its Historic Reality
December 15, 2014 by Fr. James V. Schall, SJ
In those days, Caesar Augustus published a decree ordering a census of the whole world. This first took place when Quirinius was the governor of Syria. Everyone went to register, each to his own town. And so Joseph went from his own town of … [Read more...]
Apokatastasis: On the Salvation of a Punk Rock Princess
December 15, 2014 by Andrew Summerson
“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine” are the famous opening words sung by the godmother of punk rock, Patti Smith, on her debut album, Horses. On Wednesday, April 11, 2013, the same Patti Smith—a self-proclaimed “non-Catholic who l … [Read more...]
Saved from a Deacon’s Nightmare
Preaching That Changes Lives
December 2, 2014 by Deacon Edward McCormack, PhD
A Nightmare Not long ago, I experienced a deacon’s nightmare. I was serving the 7:30 AM Mass on Sunday morning, and just as the lector stood up to do the first reading, the presider turned to me and said, “You are preaching this morning, ri … [Read more...]
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