1968 was a year of upheaval, perhaps best remembered by Americans for the assassinations of Martin Luther King, Jr., and Robert Kennedy, and by Catholics for the promulgation of Humanae vitae. But the unobtrusive coining of a new definition … [Read more...]
Who Knows? The Truth About Pope Pius XI and His Much-Maligned Successor.
A Book Review Essay
February 24, 2018 by Roseanne T. Sullivan
Hitler, Mussolini, and the Vatican: Pope Pius XI and the Speech That Was Never Made is an English translation published in 2011 of a book first published in 2007 by Emma Fattorini, professor of Modern History at the University of … [Read more...]
The Beauty of Chastity Today
August 25, 2014 by Carolyn Humphreys, OCDS
Chastity is a costly pearl that must be guarded well. Well-lived chastity is a habitual disposition of the heart and mind that makes a person gracious and approachable. The transparent beauty of chastity sees life through a lens of … [Read more...]
The Holy Family, Celibacy, and Marriage: A Reflection on the “Passage” from the Jewish Rite of Marriage to the Sacrament of Marriage
August 11, 2014 by Francis Etheredge
If the sacrament of marriage came to be specified at a particular moment, then as the renewal of marriage was itself an indication of a new beginning ... it makes sense that the marriage of Mary and Joseph was precisely the implicitly … [Read more...]
Catholic Ecumenism: Towards an Integration of Faith, Hope, and Charity
July 26, 2014 by Dr. Christopher J. Malloy
The purpose of this one Church is to bring about the supernatural communion of all humanity together in the Spirit, under Christ as head, giving praise to the Father. Popes Pius XI, Pius XII, John Paul II, Benedict XVI, and Pope F … [Read more...]
Time to Abandon the Genesis Story?
July 10, 2014 by Dennis Bonnette, PhD
Legitimate science can never assert that Adam and Eve are impossible. It might claim that they are improbable, but never impossible. God’s omnipotence can always make short work of long odds. Is the Genesis story of a literal Adam and Ev … [Read more...]
Decoding Vatican II’s Marian Paradigm Shift
June 26, 2014 by Fr. Timothy J. Sauppe, STL
This Vatican II Mariological paradigmatic shift reverberated into all areas of ecclesial theology and liturgy, through a new hermeneutic or interpretation that went beyond the council’s purview and became what is described as a new ethos, t … [Read more...]
Images of the Priest in the Life and Thought of John Paul II
April 23, 2014 by George Weigel
February, March, and early April 2005 unfolded as not just an extraordinary human drama, but as an extraordinary Christian drama and, indeed, an extraordinary priestly drama ... what the world saw ... and what the Church lived through ... … [Read more...]
The Side Effects of the Pill: Why the Church Has So Much to Say about Contraception
March 21, 2014 by Dr. William Newton
The Church pays special attention to the issue of contraception ... because so many of the modern errors in moral theology converge in this particular question of conjugal morality. There is an impression out there–in the world and even w … [Read more...]
“La Petite Voie” of Thérése of Lisieux
October 6, 2013 by David Vincent Meconi
Here was one of the most brilliant popes the Church has ever seen declaring that little Thérése Martin was to be studied and analyzed alongside the great Augustine, Thomas Aquinas, and Robert Bellarmine! St. Therese of Lisieux: as a ch … [Read more...]
Knowing Enough History to Defend It: Catholic History and Apologetics
September 25, 2013 by Stephanie A. Mann
The Church is distinctive among institutions in the history of mankind: it is human and yet divine; perfect, yet in need of reform; holy, yet made up of sinners; infallible, yet led by fallen, fallible humans. While many seem to … [Read more...]
An Ignatian Bishop of Rome
May 22, 2013 by Gregory Vall
Like Bergoglio’s choice of the name Francis—after the Poverello of Assisi rather than the Jesuit Francis Xavier—the phrase “presides in charity” and its evocation of “the other Ignatius” may turn out to be interpretive keys to the unpretenti … [Read more...]
Cantor, Psalmist, and Cleric: The Pastoral Care and Responsibilities of the Soloist Musician
January 25, 2013 by Deacon W. Patrick Cunningham
Next to the ministry of priests and deacons, the ministries in parish music—particularly music for Mass—are the most visible in many Catholic communities. With the advent of the new Missal, ... music ministries have the opportunity to beco … [Read more...]
Evolution and the Catholic Faith
August 6, 2012 by Fr. Kenneth Baker, SJ
Evolution is a theory but not an established fact, because the origins of human life are not now observable, since, according to the theory, life arose from inert matter millions or billions of years ago. If evolution were a fact, it would … [Read more...]
A holy, brave, maligned pope
MAN OF PEACE: POPE PIUS XII. By Margherita Marchione (Paulist Press, 997 Macarthur Blvd., Mahway, N.J. 07430, 2004), xi + 79 pp. PB $9.95.
April 1, 2009 by Book Reviews
This is an abridged edition of Sr. Margherita Marchione’s Shepherd Souls: a pictorial life of Pope Pius XII. Her written defenses of Pope Pius XII began in 1977. This is her fifth volume in response to the attacks leveled against Pius XII t … [Read more...]
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