Catholic Living

January 3, 2013

Why “Celebrate” Christmas—and the Epiphany?

Did you know that Christmas celebrations were banned in Scotland until 1958? I certainly didn’t, not until my son started working on his sixth grade “Christmas around the World” report. I haven’t looked up what the English did in this…

December 31, 2012

Thirteen Bold Resolutions for 2013

by Dr. Raymond A. Craig

We Americans love to upgrade ourselves—or at least give improvement a lick and a promise as we turn the page on a given milestone. Jonathan Edwards famously wrote out 70 resolutions (yes, 70!); one assumes North America’s greatest thinker and…

December 28, 2012

Catholics Must Not Cede Ground in Public Debate

by James Kalb

In the last several months I’ve been discussing the problems Catholics face dealing with public life today. The recent election underlined some of them. The bishops and others made their pitch about threats to the family and the freedom of…

December 26, 2012

The 2012 Christmas Eve Homily of Pope Benedict XVI

by Pope Benedict XVI

Again and again the beauty of this Gospel touches our hearts: a beauty that is the splendor of truth. Again and again it astonishes us that God makes himself a child so that we may love him, so that we…

December 24, 2012

The Silent Wonder of Mary and Joseph

by Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet

We have beheld the shepherds coming in from their fields glorifying God and bringing all who heard them to glorify him too. Yet here is something still more marvelous and edifying: “Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her…

December 11, 2012

The Measure of Humanity

by Arland K. Nichols

Pope Benedict writes in Spe salvi, “The true measure of humanity is essentially determined in relationship to suffering and to the sufferer.” These words recently took on new meaning for me as I encountered the story of Edwarda O’Bara, who…

December 6, 2012

“Go Read Your Thomas”

by Brian Jones

Last year, Christopher Kaczor, professor of philosophy at Loyola Marymount University, edited a magnificent book entitled O Rare Ralph McInerny: Stories and Reflections on a Legendary Notre Dame Professor. The book is a collection of essays written by former friends,…

November 26, 2012

On Cultivating the Catholic Mind

by Brian Jones

Blogging is not typically a sphere of life that I prefer to tread into. More often than not, it seems that blogs have become merely an outlet for those who neither want nor seek genuine and fruitful intellectual discussion. This…

November 19, 2012

Catholics, Awake! Marriage Doesn’t Just Happen!

by Anthony Esolen

It’s been more than ten years since I first noticed something odd about the generally pleasant—and generally Catholic—students at the college where I teach. The boys and girls don’t hold hands. Let that serve as shorthand for the absence of…

November 9, 2012

An Icon of God’s Love: Bella Santorum

by Arland K. Nichols

The elections are over and I for one am relieved that the campaigns are in the rear-view mirror. American political discourse is a patience-testing experience, but I am grateful for and recall fondly one glimmer of love and joy from…

October 5, 2012

Who Are We?: Catholic Faith in Light of the HHS Mandate

by Pete Jermann

Who do they think they are? Such must have been the thought of many Catholics when the Obama Administration ruled that Catholic institutions must provide contraceptive services to their employees. We responded with outrage, indignation and, perhaps most of all, surprise over…

September 27, 2012

Strange Bedfellows: The Church and Secular Social Scientists on the Harmful Consequences of the Sexual Revolution

by David Paul Deavel

G. K. Chesterton wrote in his 1908 classic Orthodoxy, “The unpopular parts of Christianity turn out when examined to be the very props of the people.” The outer crust of Christian reality is a moral sternness that seems ugly, but…

September 25, 2012

Jesus of Nazareth, Family Man: On the Decline of Marriage and Childrearing

by R. J. Snell

Many headlines of the last week announced a fourth century papyrus fragment containing the Coptic phrase, “Jesus said to them, ‘My wife.…’” While some provocateurs used the occasion to belittle Christianity, commentary was mostly restrained, in keeping with the cryptic…

September 19, 2012

St. Hildegard of Bingen: A Visionary for All Time

by Brennan Pursell

St. Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) is a wonder of the past, a historical phenomenon in her own right, and a direct challenge to all who bother to learn about her and from her now in the twenty-first century. In short,…

September 11, 2012

What They Will Never Know

by Anthony Esolen

In recent days, the Canadian Christian television show, 100 Huntley Street, has been uncharacteristically aggressive in its denunciation of the anticulture about us. The topic is teenagers and smut—sometimes it is good to return to direct and morally charged words….

September 7, 2012

Good News for Women as More Catholic Physicians Follow Church Teaching

by Arland K. Nichols

A wave of excitement is gradually making its way through a small community of Catholics in Houston, Texas. Married couples who embrace the Church’s teaching in Humanae vitae and who use natural family planning have waited too long. Houston, which…

September 4, 2012

Leaving Home, Leaving Church — A Rite of Passage?

by Mike Filce

We rural people share a common understanding when it comes to our young: that it is essential for them to leave home after high school, to go away to college or work. This understanding comes from witnessing the stagnation of…

August 29, 2012

Leadership Lessons from the Life of “First Man”

by Dr. Raymond A. Craig

Neil A. Armstrong, who died Saturday from complications following heart surgery, lived a unique life experience. No wonder James R. Hansen’s authorized biography termed him ”First Man.” Like Adam of old in God’s verdant garden, Armstrong stepped upon another, starker…

August 21, 2012

Anger Management

by Rev. George W. Rutler

Each generation typically gets angry at the previous one out of impatience with the flaws that youth sees in the aged. This impatience is animated by a sense of superiority which, if unfounded in fact, is what C.S. Lewis called…

August 16, 2012

The Catholic Response to “Abolitionist” Feminism

by James Kalb

Feminism is a slippery issue that gets more slippery the more you think about it. It starts off seeming perfectly clear. One Catholic feminist, an intelligent woman, tells us that “The core of feminism lies in the simple demand that women…

← Previous Entries

Next Entries →