Msgr. James Shea on Evangelizing in a Post-Christian Society, Belief in the Invisible World, and Utopias...
Msgr. James Shea, president of the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota, has caused much discussion in Catholic circles with the book From Christendom to Apostolic Mission (University of Mary Press), which communicates that we are living in a post-Christian age and are called to be missionaries to this new era.
God Is a Loving Communion of Persons...
A Muslim man once accused me of what he called an “unforgivable sin.” My supposed offense was espousing a core truth of our faith, the foundation of all reality: Trinitarianism — that God is one being in three persons. I was dialoguing on that occasion with generally friendly and thoughtful Muslims, Jews, and Unitarians in a website’s comments section, responding to something a man who believes in God but rejects the Trinity had posted. This is what he wrote...
An architect breaks down why American diners came to look like that...
Penitential Rite Held After Naked Man Stands on St. Peter’s Basilica’s Main Altar...
Two days after a naked man stood on the high altar of St. Peter’s Basilica in a shocking security breach, the basilica’s archpriest on Saturday reconsecrated the altar during a penitential rite, as required by canon law in cases where sacred places are desecrated.Vatican News reported that the unidentified man was a Polish national who approached the high altar on June 1 as the basilica was about to close. He quickly undressed and climbed onto the altar. Photos posted online showed the words “Save children of Ukraine” written in marker on his back.
Test Everything; Hold Fast to What Is Good – A Meditation on the Need to Soberly Assess This World...
How do you and I regard this world? How do we perceive its offerings, philosophies, and standards? I pray that we soberly assess the things of this world. Sadly, many Christians pass through their days in this world in a very unreflective manner, accepting, without critique, many ungodly and harmful notions. Almost anything can be spewed forth from the television...
Inside the Treasure of San Gennaro: Unveiling the Secrets of Naples’ Religious Relics...
The southern Italian port city of Naples is one of contradictions. It is known both for its majestic views of Mount Vesuvius as well as hellish traffic. It’s the city where pizza was invented but also where unemployment is a persistent problem. It is also a city, Italy’s third largest after the capitol Rome and Milan, that features both Greek and Roman art...
What do you want of me Lord?
Whether you consider yourself a child of God or not, we all possess a common characteristic often overlooked; we are neophytes to the world around us. How you and I are raised in this world will depend on the intention of our parents and their view of the world and how they hand it down to us. As infant budding neophytes, we rely entirely on the intention and parental goodwill of our parents...
This Saturday we celebrate the feast St. Charles Lwanga and Companions...
Report: Archbishop Gänswein Ordered to Leave Vatican, Return to Home Diocese Without New Role...
Mass near Cleveland disrupted after priest discusses Dodgers controversy during Sunday homily...
LA Dodgers Pitcher Denounces Team’s Decision to Honor Anti-Catholic Group: ‘God Cannot Be Mocked’...
Fort Worth bishop bans daily Mass and Confession until Carmelite nuns drop lawsuit...
Importance of Place: Make a House a Home...
Bluebirds and tree swallows raise their young in a house. But though they make a nest, they don’t make a home. Humans make homes. A home is a house where humans make a life together. A home is a physical place distinct from all otherers precisely because it is the place of daily human life. And so perhaps other than a place of worship (which might be called God’s house), it is the most special place in material creation.
A deep dive: ‘The Little Mermaid’ then and now...
Social media is so toxic to kids that it has its own surgeon general’s warning?
Exploring the Mysteries of the Magi...
“Wise men” is a common translation in English Bibles, but it doesn’t give us a good idea who they were. The Greek word used here is magoi, the plural of magos. These terms may be more familiar from their Latin equivalents: in St. Jerome’s Vulgate, we read that magi came from the east; an individual member of the group would be a magus.
The Most Holy Trinity embraces us, sustains us, and wants to include us fully in Trinitarian life one day...
So, Lent and Easter are over. What’s next? The day that reveals what the whole point was all along: The Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, Trinity Sunday, Year A. The Trinity kicked off Lent, with the Holy Spirit driving the Son into the desert to do the will of the Father despite Satan’s temptations — and the Trinity ended Lent in Holy Week, with the Father glorifying the Son on the cross, and the Son pouring forth the Holy Spirit to draw us into his life.
Small Worlds, Great Glory and Motherhood...
We must lead the culture then in recovering a proper, robust imagination when it comes to womanhood and the vocation of marriage. It begins with our acknowledgment that we are created for small worlds, for the hidden and mundane things. Far from being diminished by this, it instead animates our purpose and infuses life, even daily life, with beauty and meaning.
Here are 10 excellent books to help introduce you to Catholic fiction...
What’s the point of reading fiction? Wouldn’t it just be better to read works of theology and the spiritual life? Well, I wouldn’t replace spiritual reading with fiction. Novels and shorts stories, however, do make a contribution to Catholic life and culture by engaging our imagination in a vicarious engagement with human action, exploring the psychology of characters...
Judging the revolutions of the 1960s by the standards of those days...
If we can now say definitively that the Castro regime did not bring a socialist utopia to Cuba, and we can, what should we say about the whirlwind that hit the Catholic Church at roughly the same time? And the sexual revolution, proclaimed just a few years after that? The Batista government that Castro overthrew was corrupt and authoritarian...
The Vatican as peacemaker in Ukraine?
A few days after Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s appointment as head of a Vatican “peace mission” to “help ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine” (as Vatican News put it), a startling picture appeared on p. A1 of the Washington Post. That graphic image illustrated just how daunting a task Cardinal Zuppi and the Vatican Secretariat of State face...
This old manor house on the road to Fátima has its own story of the miracles...
Are the purported prophecies true? Will there be Three Days of Darkness?
Washington Nationals pitcher Trevor Williams defends faith, slams Dodgers...
25 Years Later, St. John Paul II’s Effort to Keep Sundays Holy Is Even More Timely...
Twenty-five years ago, St. John Paul II issued one of his most “timely” documents. It has gone largely ignored, which is a great shame, as the fight for the Lord’s Day is being lost all over, in the broader culture and in the Church, too. Dated May 31,1998 — Pentecost that year — the apostolic letter Dies Domini was addressed to the whole Church on “keeping the Lord’s Day holy.”
The Illuminating Science Behind Fireflies...
Gower, Rosary mysteries, and the politics of ‘family compact’...
Scientists discover 7,000-year-old road submerged under the sea off the coast of Croatia...
Read Mark Twain’s ‘Joan of Arc’ — It Will Surprise You and Make You Want to Become a Saint...
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