The Long Advent of 1940 and the Scandal of the Incarnation...
During the arduous Advent of 1940, a motley crew of French and Belgian intelligentsia along with a few Jesuit priests prepared a Nativity play for their fellow captives and their German captors at the POW camp in Trier, Germany. In the penultimate scene of the play, the narrator beckons toward the unlikely tableau of a God born man.
Be Not Afraid: How to Give Your Kids Peaceful Hearts in an Anxious Culture...
Earlier this year, I took a five-month break from Facebook. The politically-themed posts and comments had simply become too toxic to read. In an election year, one has come to expect — albeit tearfully lament — that posts (even from many Catholics) will be grievously uncharitable. To be sure, the election cycle of 2024 offered a smorgasbord of sins against charity, but it also offered a generous helping of apocalyptic declarations.
This is the book that people need to read, right now...
Is anyone out there looking for a timely Christmas present for a reader — young adults and up — who can handle hard questions? In this case, we are talking a prophetic masterpiece by one of the great British writers of the 20th Century, the late P.D. James. She kept writing into her 90s, releasing “Death Comes to Pemberley” in 2011. But the book that people need to read...
FBI Warns iPhone And Android Users — Be Careful Sending Texts Between Platforms...
13 Traditions for Keeping an Advent Attitude...
The only question that matters is whether Jesus Christ is really the Lord of creation. You must decide — and act accordingly...
Words matter. They express but also shape our thoughts, which in turn frame the way we live. Here’s an example: The words of the Nicene Creed are crucial to Christian belief. They’ve summarized and guided the Christian faith for 1,700 years. We recite them routinely every Sunday at Mass, but there was nothing routine in their origin. Good people argued, fought, and died in formulating them...
Archbishop Sheen’s Beatification ‘Inevitable’ Amid Growing Devotion, Says Foundation Head...
5 Brief Advent Themes...
Autumn and early winter are times of great seasonal change. The leaves turn brilliant colors then fade and fall. The shadows lengthen as the days grow shorter and colder. The warmth of summer and vacations seem distant memories and we are reminded once again that the things of this world last but a moment and pass away. Even so, we look forward as well. Christmas can be a wonderful time of year.
Nativity Scene in Lebanon Vandalized...
One of the most dramatic political events in history unfolded in a Catholic Church...
‘I Came To Cast Fire’ introduces readers to the unique work of René Girard...
This Sunday, the Unexpected Jesus: 4 Takeaways From the First Sunday of Advent...
This Sunday is the First Sunday of Advent, Year C, and the Church’s readings ask us to prepare for Christmas in a serious, radical way — in many ways by doing the opposite of what the rest of the culture is doing right now.Here are takeaways from this week’s readings, taken from previous This Sunday posts and the Extraordinary Story podcast.
Sister Wilhelmina’s order expands to English abbey founded by St. Thomas More’s family...
The Soviet Union taught me to give thanks for America...
“Ho ho! Pink Floyd!” the fellow said, laughing. “Rolling Stones!” said his companion, also laughing. We’d met in a dark street in a major city, and they wanted to talk to my friend and me, even though talking to us was dangerous. It was 1978, in Kyiv, if I remember right, when the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev, a very bad man at the top of an evil regime, seemed invincible. Some scholars and observers predicted that the totalitarian regime...
The Conditions for Ultimate Greatness...
A friend asked me recently, “Is there any publication that reviews books that aren’t new?” I told her proudly that we do that here at The Imaginative Conservative. Our conservative imagination is such that we don’t believe that “new” equals better or more worthy nor does “old” mean worse or unworthy. Books are not like jugs of milk...
8 Little-Known Facts About Notre Dame Cathedral...
Which Is More Powerful: Lasers or Lightning? There’s Only One Fun Way to Find Out...
‘Luce,’ mascot of dumbed-down Catholicism...
During his years as professor of fundamental theology at Rome’s Pontifical Gregorian University, Salvatore “Rino” Fisichella was often cited by American seminarians as their favorite professor – an exponent of dynamic orthodoxy whose engaging classroom style was a blessed relief from the stolid ways of the Roman academy. Later, after Pope John Paul II issued Fides et Ratio...
‘Harry Potter’ Author J.K. Rowling Opens Up About ‘Thousands of Threats’ She’s Received for Opposing Transgenderism...
Author J.K. Rowling has opened up this week about the harsh treatment she has received — including “thousands of threats of murder, rape and violence” — for daring to speak out against the dangers of gender ideology. “A trans woman posted my family's home address with a bomb-making guide,” the British author of the “Harry Potter” books reveals in a now-viral Dec. 2 social media post...
Singing isn’t just for choir lofts. Singing is something every amateur, with love, should do at home...
“Only the lover sings.” Though St. Augustine’s rightly famous words strike us as true, we perhaps do not immediately grasp a corollary: love calls for and even demands singing. To sing—at least in a certain way—both expresses and cultivates the very love from which it springs. And as with so many of the basic human dispositions and practices, this should begin in the home...
9 Can’t-Miss History Books to Give to Dads This Christmas...
Pope Francis: Where have the people gone?
The new papal funeral rite has a striking detail: in the first phase, the one at home, the dead Pope is exposed in a simple white cassock. This is particularly unusual. Priests are composed in their vestments because a priest is a priest forever. All the more so for a bishop, who is “chief priest” and possesses what we call “fullness of orders” in Catholic parlance...
Survey Says: Here’s What Catholic Priests Want Their Staff Members To Know...
I know hundreds of priests and bishops and am friends with many of them. It is a perk of my job that I have conversations with priests when they let their guard down and know that I can be someone they can be real with. The vast majority of our priests are amazing men who want to serve God and the Church...
Pope’s Sunday Angelus: ‘Be Vigilant and Turn Your Gaze to Heaven’...
What Has Jesus Got Against Fig Trees?
Did Jesus have a grudge against fig trees? Was He clueless about horticultural seasons? Or might there be more going on than meets the eye? The story of Jesus cursing the fig tree is famous for its strangeness. It’s one of those Gospel passages that homilists dread, and for many Christians the whole episode is nothing short of baffling. Famously, the 20th century atheist philosopher Bertrand Russell regarded the cursing of the fig tree as evidence...
The past, present, and future of Advent...
What I learned about America living in a country without Thanksgiving...
UK Poised to Legalize Assisted Suicide Despite Catholic Outcry...
Prosecutor Confirms Existence of Vatican Dossier on Disappearance of Emanuela Orlandi ...
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