Magazine

Religious Freedom, Slavery, and Usury

Three Challenges to the Hermeneutic of Continuity

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?

“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

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...]

Questions Answered

Is there some Catholic teaching on the morality of the nanny state and its tendency to try to control all of life through federal law? Can you give me some guidance as to the use of the media? We used to have a Legion of Decency which … [Read more...]

Thanks from the Phillipines

Thank you very much for your much appreciated help to is priests in the busy parishes! More power to your Media Apostolate! Msgr. Felicito C Sison Archdiocese of San Fernando Pampanga Philippines … [Read more...]

Homilies for January 2015

Homilies for Sunday Liturgies and Holy Days, January 2015

Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God—January 1, 2015 Entrusting Our Lives and This New Year to Mary Purpose: On this eighth day of the birth of the Savior, let us renew our baptismal covenant with Jesus Christ, in his Church, through the i … [Read more...]

Why Do Priests Need Philosophy?

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

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

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

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

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...]

Winter Reading for December 2014

31 Days to Becoming a Better Religious Educator. Jared Dees (Notre Dame, Indiana: Ave Maria Press: 2013) 164 pages; $9.95. (Reviewed by Brandon Harvey) The Power of Four: Keys to the Hidden Treasures of the Gospels. Eduardo P. … [Read more...]

Why God Becomes Human

The Advent and Christmas seasons are upon us. Like the reality itself, we Christians have to look more deeply to see the mystery beneath the glitter and the commotion. God has now descended into his creation to take up his rightful place as … [Read more...]

The Holy Spirit and the Contemporary Reform of the Catholic Church

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

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...]