Pope Francis held aloft the Blessed Sacrament at his extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing on March 27 — and Italy’s COVID-19 death rate has been dropping ever since...

COVID-19 has made it clearer than ever: Bishops, priests and deacons need better homily and social media training...

Meet the contemplative Carmelite nuns known in London as ‘the heavy artillery’...
K.V. Turley
There is a community of enclosed Carmelite nuns who are gaining a reputation in London. The community, the Carmelite Sisters in Tangiers, lives in Morocco, however, many miles from the British capital. So how have these contemplatives attracted a devoted and grateful group of supporters and friends in London, centered mainly in the capital’s business district known simply as: “The City”? In recent years, bankers, stockbrokers and City lawyers have started talking of these Carmelite nuns as “the heavy artillery.”

How St. Philip Neri defeated the devil’s attacks...
Philip Kosloski
St. Philip Neri was a holy priest during the 16th century who was widely known for his sanctity. After his death, the effectiveness of his ministry even gained him the title of “Second Apostle of Rome,” showing how much he positively influenced the city. However, his activity did not go unnoticed by his fiercest enemy, the devil. Satan tried with all his might to tempt or scare St. Philip away from his apostolic activities.

“Lord, teach us to pray” — Reflections on Fulton Sheen...

When demons flee dying people: The hidden saving power of the Divine Mercy chaplet...

How George Washington led the Continental Army, and the new nation, through two epidemics...

Out of this world we’re in...

Pope Francis entrusts China to the Blessed Virgin Mary...

The icy Antarctic village where you must have your appendix removed before moving in...

The world needs COVID-19 vaccines. It may also be overestimating their power...

3 profound things Jesus revealed to Julian of Norwich about a hazelnut...
Regis Martin
Imagine you’re having an encounter with someone really quite special. Not an avatar, for heaven sake, whose existence is entirely unreal even as you create one after another amid the sad solipsisms of cyberspace. But an actual human being, a someone with whom real presence is possible. A person, in fact, so captivating and close that nothing can get in the way to block the perfect unity of the experience. “I to my beloved, my beloved unto me.” It doesn’t get much better than that. An ideal intimacy, in short, for which nothing in this world can match the joy and the harmony it brings. And not because the two of you are identifiably the same. But because neither of you is expected to replicate the other, thus reducing real unity to a state of dull uniform sameness. In other words, it’s not about self-love, which is unfulfilling, but love of the other as other.

Opening salvos in Pope Francis’ financial ‘Reform 2.0’...
John Allen
Facing both a looming economic crisis and reminders that the anti-financial scandal measures adopted to date haven’t been fully effective, Pope Francis and his Vatican team this week have moved to try to defuse the bomb before it goes off, closing several Swiss holding companies responsible for portions of its assets and reallocating internal control over financial data collection.

Bishops should stop trying to be “players” in the larger socio-political order, and start putting God’s house in order...
Jeff Mirus
Phil Lawler made several excellent points in Rendering to Caesar in an epidemic: the limits of authority. We agree that it is not quite fair to make adverse judgments against the bishops simply for complying with civil restrictions designed to control the pandemic. But as Phil pointed out, there is certainly good reason to be concerned about the general deference of our bishops to the dominant culture, as frequently represented by civil authority.

Protecting Grandma after the pandemic: The secret war on the elderly...
Rick Becker
Back in March — remember March? It was like 100 years ago; a thousand years ago — yes, back in March, I reposted an opinion piece from the Wall Street Journal called, “Is the Coronavirus as Deadly as They say?” It was by a couple of Stanford medical researchers, Eran Bendavid and Jay Bhattacharya, who were pushing back against the COVID-19 panic. I’m an RN, and I suspected early on that this new, highly contagious disease would be deadly...

After the death of its Grand Master, tensions resurface in the Order of Malta...
Edward Pentin
The death last month of the Order of Malta’s grand master, Fra’ Giacomo Dalla Torre del Tempio di Sanguinetto, has sparked internal discussion over who could succeed him, while at the same time reigniting intrigues and painful tensions between those pushing to modernize the order and others who believe in its traditional character. Dalla Torre, a kindly and highly cultured librarian who did much for the poor and came from a noble family in Treviso...

23 dangerous things you should let your kids do...

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