Thankless lepers: On San Marino and the Church today...
Jeff Mirus
If you are looking for a microcosm of the modern West, try San Marino: The tiny, land-locked nation just west of the port city of Rimini on the Adriatic Sea. Its population of just under 35,000 inhabits an area of 24 square miles. Based on GDP per capita, San Marino is one of the wealthiest nations in the world. This same population is also 91% Catholic. Yet San Marino has just legalized abortion, not through a political trick but through a public referendum.

In storm-damaged Louisiana, there is not victimhood, but resilience and gratitude...
Kathryn Jean Lopez
Mattresses waiting for sanitation pickup. Downed trees. Trees pruned by nature. Bags and bags and bags of garbage that has not been picked up, but mercifully not the first Ida-round of once-frozen meat. On the way from the airport into New Orleans, you saw refrigerators outside homes, too; you wound up having to discard it if you didn’t get a chance to empty your freezer before the storm hit.

The Tuesday Pillar Post: They might be saints...
J.D. Flynn
A few weeks ago, a friend, discouraged by the news of the world, asked me whether The Pillar could have a “good-news-only” week sometime. Well, today’s Tuesday Pillar Post, with several good news stories, comes close to fitting the bill. This was purely coincidental, I assure you...

Meet Blessed Vilmos Apor, a bishop who died defending women from the Soviets...
Philip Kosloski
During World War II, Bishop Vilmos Apor was a strong advocate for all the oppressed, especially Jews who were being taken away by Nazi soldiers. He would often use his own episcopal residence to shelter those who were being persecuted, while he would use a small room for himself. After the Nazis were driven out, the Soviet government stepped in and enacted their own atheistic regime.

‘Let down your nets!’ — In 2001, John Paul II spelled out this 5-step plan for our times...
Tom Hoopes
“Put out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch.” Those words of Jesus Christ were also favorites of St. John Paul II, and 20 years ago, he got very practical about what they should mean for us in our time. He gave a very specific plan for the years that would follow the year 2000, and promised it would bring the same result as it did for Simon: “When they had done this, they caught a great number of fish.”

Everything your friends know about Galileo is wrong — here’s how to set the record straight...
Christopher Graney
Galileo did not prove that the Earth moves. He did not invent the telescope. He was not excommunicated, tortured or burned. So where do these ideas originate? Unfortunately, all too often they have originated with seemingly respectable, scholarly sources; who else would talk about a 17th-century scientist? Even recently a number of respectable-seeming books have been published that promote what Pope St. John Paul II once called the “myth” of Galileo...

Brilliant dashcam fireball videos help scientists find 3 meteorites in Slovenia...

After decades of going against the tide, San Marino (nominally 97% Catholic) votes overwhelmingly to legalize abortion...

Cardinal Burke Provides Update on His Recovery From COVID-19...

Will souls in Hell receive resurrected bodies too?

How artificial intelligence “completed” Beethoven’s unfinished Tenth Symphony...

In this 26th Week of the Year, the Lord teaches us how to tell the difference between His friends from His foes...
Msgr. Charles Pope
In this Sunday’s Gospel there is a certain tension between legitimate freedom and truths we must insist upon. We also have a lot to learn in sorting out friends and foes. The text begins, John said to Jesus, “Teacher, we saw someone driving out demons in your name, and we tried to prevent him because he does not follow us”...

Here are the largest predators ever to have lived in North America...

How to own a bull for more than 38 seconds...

This Sunday — His friend is my friend, His enemy is my enemy...

Conscience, COVID vaccines and the common good...

California governor Gavin Newsom moves to protect ‘privacy’ of minors who procure abortions...