Why Ross Douthat Has Become an Optimist About America’s Future...
America has had no shortage of pessimistic critiques in recent years.And with titles like Bad Religion: How We Became a Nation of Heretics and The Decadent Society: How We Became Victims of Our Own Success to his name, Ross Douthat has become something of a master of the genre.But at a Sept. 6 talk at the University of Notre Dame, the conservative Catholic commentator and New York Times columnist sounded an uncharacteristically optimistic note regarding the United States’ prospects.
Quito, a Whale Spy, and ‘Sensory Masses’...
Greetings from Quito, Ecuador, where I arrived last night to cover the International Eucharistic Congress, a week-long global pilgrimage event organized under the aegis of the creatively named Pontifical Committee for Eucharistic Congresses at the Vatican. I got to Quito well after midnight, and I really haven’t seen or done anything yet, save for taking a Tylenol PM and hitting the hay.
Pope Francis Arrives in East Timor, Asia’s Youngest and Most Catholic Country...
Reading With a Second Friend: Pope Francis on Literature...
Pope Francis’s pontificate has been, to put it mildly, controversial. His judgments—theological, administrative, and otherwise—have generally cheered those who seem to want the Catholic Church to resemble the liberal Protestant groups that are evaporating before our eyes. The ambiguity with which Francis has expressed many of these judgments has unleashed before us...
Pope Francis in Papua New Guinea: ‘Put Love Before Superstition and Fear’...
The New Maori Queen in New Zealand is Catholic...
NYTimes and AP look at the ideas that led J.D. Vance to become Catholic...
One of the world’s most important newsrooms just offered a finely detailed profile of Catholic convert J.D. Vance and, imagine this, the feature focused on the emotions and ideas that led him to swim the Tiber. This included his intellectual and spiritual attraction to the work of St. Augustine, one of the most important minds in all of Western culture.
Mike Aquilina Explores 12 Ancient Cities and How They Were Evangelized...
Cities have always been rough places. When too many people are crowded together, there’s no telling what can go wrong: riots, vandalism and even murder. And when people with dearly held diverse views get in each other’s faces, sparks can fly — followed by fire. That’s especially true when those diverse views are religious in nature...
Brothers in Arms, Romeo and Juliet, and Knives Out...
There is a war on. We shouldn’t forget that. In fact, there’s more than one. Real wars, taking real lives, destroying real homes of real families. It’s all too easy for those of us who aren’t doing the actual fighting and dying, living out of immediate danger, to simply dial down the volume and allow this reality to recede into the background static...
Pope Francis Arrives in Papua New Guinea Amid Reports of Foiled Attack in Indonesia...
The 'Root Causes' of Sexual Abuse in the Church...
The subject always deserves consideration, but two recent articles on sex abuse within the Church are worth discussion. The first, published by Crux, declares — sadly, to the surprise of no one — “Abuse crisis in the Catholic Church shows no signs of abating.” The second came via OSV News: Catholics in the Sicilian city of Enna are protesting a diocesan cover-up of abuses against minors, committed by a local priest while he was still a seminarian, between 2009 and 2013.
Are missionaries agents of colonialism?
Our Life Is So Worth Being Kind...
International Eucharistic Congress Begins Sept. 8 in Ecuador...
Before He Voiced Darth Vader, Catholic Convert James Earl Jones Was a Wise Man...
No, your parish is not ‘vibrant’...
Could we all please agree to stop using the adjective “vibrant” to describe a Catholic parish, diocese, or other faith community? My desktop dictionary (admittedly an antique, Webster’s New Collegiate, published in 1974) defines “vibrant” as “oscillating or pulsating rapidly”—something that is ordinarily done by inanimate objects, not by human beings, let alone human communities...
What Are Some Psalms Worth Memorizing for Different Occasions?
The psalms are the prayer book of the Church. For this reason, we do well not only to pray them regularly, but also to commit to memorizing them by heart so that “His praise will always be on my lips” (Ps 34:1). What follows is a small sampling of psalms worth learning for different occasions, following the numbering system employed by the NAB and RSV translations...
Pope Francis Asks Papua New Guinea Catholics to Spread the Gospel to ‘Peripheries’...
Thanks, Richard Dawkins...
When I became Catholic in 2006, the New Atheism was at its height. New Atheism taught young people that religion is superstitious and irrational and, therefore, should not be tolerated. Proponents advocated an “antitheist” view that criticism of religion using, what they considered, rational argument, especially where religion and society intersect in politics and education...
In this Sunday’s Gospel, pay attention to Our Lord’s unusual travel route, and these other important details...
The passage begins by saying, “Jesus left the district of Tyre and went by way of Sidon to the Sea of Galilee.” If you look at a map of the territory, you will see that this is like saying, “Jesus left New York, and went to Washington, D.C., by way of Boston.” This is a telling detail about Jesus’s modus operandi. He often doesn’t take the most efficient way; he takes the most efficacious way. The most efficient way to save the world might have been to appear in the palaces of all the kings on earth at once...
The Straits Times: Indonesian police detain seven in a failed plot to attack Pope Francis...
Voyage Classics Releases St. Thérèse of Lisieux’s ‘Story of a Soul’ With Original Artwork...
One of the most popular religious autobiographies of all time, this Voyage Classics edition of Story of a Soul by St. Thérèse of Lisieux, highlights the Carmelite saint’s attraction to the sea and her love of the spiritual symbolism behind it. As she wrote in her autobiography, “the symbol of a ship always delights me, and helps me to bear with my exile. Does not the Wise Man tell us: ‘Life is like a ship that passeth through the waves; when it is gone, the trace thereof cannot be found?’”
EWTN News/RealClear Opinion Research Poll: Kamala Harris Leads Donald Trump Among Catholic Voters...
If You Read One Novel This Year, Make It ‘Brideshead Revisited’...
After years of hearing about it, I finally got around to reading the most famous work of the great British writer Evelyn Waugh, Brideshead Revisited. I wish I hadn’t waited. (For those who like to listen to books, an audio version is superbly performed by Jeremy Irons.) The novel tells the story of the romances, tragedies, and transformations of Charles Ryder. His family life is not exactly ideal...
Venezuelan dictator Maduro declares Christmas to kick off on Oct. 1...
Pope John Paul II and ‘Witness to Hope’ 25 Years Later...
My hands were shaky a quarter-century ago as I carried the heavy box from the front door of our house into my study. Inside were my author’s copies of Witness to Hope, the first volume of my biography of Pope John Paul II, and my mind was racing: Did the editors catch the last corrections I sent? Did that scarifying misnumbering of the endnotes in one chapter get sorted out?
Mother Teresa Feared ‘Big Crowds’ — But She Loved Telling Them About the Eucharist...
IVF is wrong, and so is this ramen...
Get this entire Catholic website as an instant digital download...
The full contents of the New Advent website are available as a digital download. It includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — and it's only $19.99...
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