Fr. Meconi: It is an honor to be with you. Your reflections on the beauty of Humanae Vitae, and the Church’s incessant teaching on the divine will for married love, have helped many come to see what Christian marriage really means. R … [Read more...]
Articles
July Editorial: Interview with Dr. Janet Smith of the Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit
July 27, 2015 by David Vincent Meconi
A “Categorical Silence” in the Preparatory Questionnaire for the 2015 Synod
July 27, 2015 by Fr. Mark A. Pilon
“Make no mistake, my brothers: those who corrupt families will not inherit the kingdom of God.” —Ignatius of Antioch, To the Ephesians In his 2007 autobiography, Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, retired Archbishop of Bologna, recalled his surpr … [Read more...]
The Forgotten Vice in Seminary Formation
July 27, 2015 by Fr. James Mason
We make men without chests and expect from them virtue and enterprise. We laugh at honor and are shocked to find traitors in our midst. —C. S. Lewis from The Abolition of Man. (This article originally appeared in the May 2006 print e … [Read more...]
“Why Do I Exist?”: The Unavoidable Wonderment
July 27, 2015 by Fr. James V. Schall, SJ
(Socrates) “Could anything great really come to pass in a short time? And isn’t the time from childhood to old age short when compared to the whole of time?” (Glaucon) “It is a mere nothing.” (Socrates) “Well, do you think that an immortal b … [Read more...]
What’s Changed?
A Comparison of Self- and Divine-Referential Pronoun Usage in Hymns Written Pre- and Post-Vatican II
July 12, 2015 by J.E. Sigler
“He that sings praise, not only sings, but also loves him of whom he sings.”—St. Augustine Noticeable Change in Pre- & Post-Vatican II Hymns Some HPR readers may be unaware that people have been arguing about the language of Church hym … [Read more...]
How to Read the Bible and Still Be a Christian
The Problem of Divine Violence as Considered in Recent Curial Documents
July 12, 2015 by Dr. Matthew J. Ramage, PhD
Introduction If God exists, he is not the God of the Christian Bible. At least this is the conclusion drawn by many prominent authors and cultural commentators in our society today. The rise of agnosticism and atheism in contemporary … [Read more...]
Toward a Theology of the Papacy
Reading Between the Lines of the Church Fathers
July 12, 2015 by Dr. William R. Luckey, PhD
Most Catholics seem to know, whether they accept it or not, what the job of the pope is. He sort of runs the Church from a central location; he is infallible (protected from error) in his serious public pronouncements on the subject of … [Read more...]
An Anthropology of Gaudium et Spes
July 12, 2015 by Francis Etheredge
The radical originality of God: When God created man, male and female, “He established Himself” as the “un-originate origin” of the diversity of the sexes. Part I of II In Part I of this essay (Part II is here), there is an examination o … [Read more...]
Kneeling Ban: Good Liturgy or Loss of Religious Freedom?
July 12, 2015 by Fr. Regis Scanlon, OFMCap
Some religious leaders in the Latin Rite are pressuring Catholics not to kneel at the Consecration, or to genuflect at their reception of the Eucharist. This trend has gained a great deal of traction in recent years, and is causing alarm … [Read more...]
“Go Gaily in the Dark”
Alfred the Great and Preservation of Christian Civilization
July 12, 2015 by Dr. William C. Zehringer, PhD
Epigraph From G.K. Chesterton’s The Ballad of the White Horse (words spoken by Mary, the Mother of God, to a sadly dispirited Alfred the Great): The men of the East may spell the stars, And times and triumphs mark. But the men signed o … [Read more...]
Further Thoughts on the Synod
July 12, 2015 by Msgr. Cormac Burke
There was rejoicing at the first calling of the Synod because the family is in a bad way almost everywhere in the world. If there has been so much dissatisfaction with last year's—preliminary—Synod it is because the reports given, and the im … [Read more...]
The Theological Mind of Laudato Si’
June 27, 2015 by Eduardo Echeverria
In this article, I consciously refrain from considering the parts of Pope Francis’s new Encyclical Letter, Laudato Si’ (hereafter LS) that have been the most contentiously received, namely: his views of a free market system, the nature and e … [Read more...]
To Give Up One’s Cloak
June 27, 2015 by Clara M.B. Fleischmann
When St. Martin of Tours encountered a poor, naked beggar, he tore his own warm cloak in half, to share it. Later, he discovered in a dream that the beggar was Christ. The story of St. Martin and the beggar provides a key to an area of … [Read more...]
“Family, Become What You Are”
Probing the Depth of the Theology of the Family
June 27, 2015 by Kathleen Curran Sweeney
Catholic families today are surrounded and pressured by many wrong ideas and attitudes prevalent in our culture. The very meaning of marriage and family has been undermined. Families could use some bolstering and clear thinking to support … [Read more...]
Witnessing to Truth
Nostra Aetate and the New Evangelization
June 27, 2015 by Dr. Richard Francis Crane, PhD
The Vatican II declaration Nostra Aetate revolutionized the Catholic Church’s relations with non-Christian religions, especially Judaism. The fourth part of this short declaration marked a decisive shift in Catholic-Jewish relations, r … [Read more...]
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