Church

An Interview with a Saint

The following interview with Rev. John A. Hardon, S.J., by Anita Crane, appeared in the Dec. 1997 edition of Crisis Magazine. Father Hardon died on Dec. 30, 2000, and the cause for his canonization has already been introduced.   John Hardon, S.J., has fought the good fight for some time. He has published more than … Read more

Priests: “Resolve” to Love the Laity

The Church was also in need of change, but only to the extent that she needed to look again at how she could most effectively change the world. We have allowed a missionary council to be domesticated. The greatest failure of the post-Vatican II Church is the failure to call forth and to form a … Read more

Hello, My Name is “Legion”

The Grand Inquisitor (paperback) Text by John Zmirak, art by Carla Millar, Crossroad, $16.73.   At first glance, it seems designed specifically to freak out everyone in its numerous potential overlapping markets–an intricately Gothic comic book, its dialogue written in elaborate blank verse, its plot inspired by and title borrowed from Dostoevsky’s heavy-going ‘Grand Inquisitor,’ … Read more

A Prophetic Novel of the End Times

For our wrestling is not against flesh and blood; but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the world of this darkness, against the spirits of wickedness in the high places. (Eph., 6-12) And yet in spite of this universal world which we see, there is another world, quite as farspreading, quite as close … Read more

The Heavens Proclaim the Glory of the Lord

Many people that I have come across say that they believe in God, and might even acknowledge the need to conform to a moral code (quite how they discern it is another matter) but see no reason for ‘organised religion’, which they see as arbitrary creation of mankind. I think that the beauty of the … Read more

Christmas: the Infinite, and the Finite

The title of Father Edward Oakes’ new book, Infinity Dwindled to Infancy, nicely captures the imaginative challenge posed at Christmas: the mystery of the infinite God become finite man. In truth, however, the challenge to our imaginations has less to do with the how of what the Divine Office calls this admirabile commercium [marvelous exchange] … Read more

At Belmont Abbey, Catholics Fight Back

The first counterattack on behalf of religious liberty has, perhaps, begun. Earlier this month, Belmont Abbey College, a small, century-old Benedictine college in North Carolina that has deep devotion to its Catholic identity, sued the federal government for violating its rights to worship freely because of certain provisions of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, know … Read more

…But do Bad Dogs go to Hell?

It was somewhat of a surprise when George died despite his old age, for he had seemed to live through everything—much pestering from our younger dog, Wolfie; consuming way too much chocolate, candy, and paper towels; chewing on a poisonous tick collar; jumping out of a moving (quite fast) pickup truck after another dog; surviving … Read more

Hope Flies on the Ascalon

The Avro York LV 633  “Ascalon” was an air transport developed in 1942, somewhat bulky in appearance with wings mounted high in the fuselage.   It was Churchill’s favorite flight model, with enough space for a conference room.  The name “Ascalon” was the traditional name for the lance used by St. George to slay the dragon, … Read more

Can the Church Ban Capital Punishment?

Today Crisis is offering a symposium on capital punishment. For Archbishop Charles Chaput’s view, see this essay. For news about recent Vatican statements on the issue, see this article.   This piece on capital punishment is a revision of the original, which first appeared in Latin Mass Magazine (Summer 2001). It is written from a … Read more

Will Mel Gibson Baptize Chanukhah?

In a recent blog post for Andrew Breitbart’s Big Hollywood, Jeff Dunetz laments that “Mel Gibson’s Catholic Faith Completely Contradicts Story of Judah Maccabee.” The blogger feels that this highly-troubled entertainer is the wrong choice to direct a film about an ancient Jewish hero. True, Mel Gibson’s Catholic faith contradicts many things, including Catholicism. Dunetz … Read more

Breaking Bad Liturgical Habits

  The long-awaited introduction of the new translation of the Roman Missal on November 27, the First Sunday of Advent, offers the Church in the Anglophere an opportunity to reflect on the riches of the liturgy, its biblical vocabulary, and its virtually inexhaustible storehouse of images. Much of that vocabulary, and a great many of … Read more

Downsizing-to-Grow in Ireland

  Catholicism is in crisis all over Old Europe. Nowhere is that crisis more pronounced than in Ireland, where clerical corruption and disastrous episcopal leadership have collided with rank political expediency and a rabidly anticlerical media to produce a perfect storm of ecclesiastical meltdown. The country whose constitution begins “In the name of the Most … Read more

We are Non-Roman Catholics

The first reaction of visitors to my lovely parish church is generally one of bewilderment, as they anoint themselves with air after reaching out for a holy water font inside the door and coming up empty. No statues, either. No stations of the cross. No confessionals or Rosary group either, for that matter. The first … Read more

Proceeding Toward Reunion at Last

This article originally appeared in the April 2000 issue of Crisis Magazine. The “dialogue of love” between Rome and the Orthodox Churches that offered so much promise after nine centuries of ecclesial estrangement seems to be running out of breath as we enter the third Christian millennium. A dramatic breakthrough is needed to restore the … Read more

On Secular Repentance

This column originally appeared in the January 2000 issue of Crisis Magazine.   Repentance is good for the soul. In the past few decades, the Church has been called upon from various quarters to repent for her misdeeds over the 20 Christian centuries. And John Paul II has openly admitted some of the faults of … Read more

The Bliss of Solitude

A Pelican in the Wilderness: Hermits, Solitaries, and Recluses, Isabel Colegate, Counterpoint Press,  320 pages, $25   When the English novelist Isabel Colegate, author of the acclaimed The Shooting Party, discovered an abandoned hermit’s cell in her garden, she restored it and thereby acquired an interest in the subject of hermits and solitaries. The result … Read more

A Nation with the Soul of a Church

One of the most insightful things I’ve ever read about America is G.K. Chesterton’s quip that it is “a nation with the soul of a church.” It’s a comment that cuts two ways. Chesterton made it at a time when the U.S. enforced on its citizens the unjust laws of Prohibition. That policy had been … Read more

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