The modern world needs to be reminded of the great truth that men are called for eternal life and that their life does not end here, on earth. Our faith in eternal life has a very important meaning: it teaches us to respect men. We must always remember that man is the most important, most … Read more
According to one sage observation: he who gets to name names, wins. Why do we talk about the Protestant Reformation and not the Protestant Revolution, for example? After all, Martin Luther commenced his journey as a reformer, repulsed righteously, as most of us would be, by the corruption and decadence of the Rome of his … Read more
Next year—2019—will mark the 30th anniversary of communism’s collapse in Poland and Eastern Europe. It will also mark 35 years since the murder of Father Jerzy Popiełuszko. I was safe in California when the communist secret police killed my former vicar in Poland in October 1984. In May 1980, Father “Jurek” Popiełuszko was assigned to our … Read more
Within the last year and half I have traveled four times to Poland. I have by no means covered the broad expanse of this great country, but I have managed to visit Warsaw, Sulwalki, Lublin, Kraków, Oswęciem, Wadowice; I have spent much time in Katowice in Upper Silesia, and its surrounding towns such as Tychy, … Read more
It was sixty years ago that the Hungarian émigré historian, John Lukacs, published his first book, The Great Powers and Eastern Europe, a masterful treatment of the subject, whose conclusion, including an elegy on the lost world he left behind, has haunted me for years. Surveying the wreckage of that shattered and divided world, he … Read more
This July at a conference at Mundelein Seminary I heard Cardinal George state that the Church is in a more perilous position in this country then it has ever been. In February he said the Church is being despoiled of her institutions and that the new HHS mandate is nothing short of a demand for … Read more