When a magazine names itself Crisis, you should know not to expect sugar plums and primroses. Our culture is in a bad way, and here at Crisis we’re pretty up-front about that fact. We endeavor to diagnose the problems and determine the appropriate response. Around here, we skip the sugar coating. As faithful Catholics, we … Read more
Over at America magazine, William Byron considers the idea of conducting “exit interviews” with Catholics who have left the Church: The church in America must face the fact that it has failed to communicate the Good News cheerfully and effectively to a population adrift on a sea of materialism and under constant attack from the … Read more
Passages in Scripture tell us that, when the Lord comes again, few believers will remain. Looking around the world, it is not hard to believe. Of the strict essence of the Christian teaching and practice, believers are a distinct minority. Both the Old and the New Testaments paint a dark picture of the number of … Read more
For Christmas, I received a copy of Christianity and the Crisis of Cultures, written by then-Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI. (I was also given some new shirts, in case anyone might think Schall is a one-dimensional man.) In the last section, Benedict questions whether, logically, a man can be an “agnostic” — someone … Read more
In "The Perils of Preaching," I offered a lament for the general mediocrity of Catholic preaching (and was treated to a number of thoughtful responses, for which I’m grateful). What follows are my layman’s suggestions for Catholic preachers. Strictly speaking, they aren’t exactly a layman’s suggestions, in the sense of being given by … Read more
Last weekend, we attended a funeral Mass for a four-month-old baby girl. She was the beloved daughter of my husband’s cousin and his wife. These are the kinds of life events that threaten to expose me for the faith fraud I fear that I am. It’s easy to say we have faith when all goes … Read more
Like most “reverts,” I was not initially interested in coming back to the Catholic Church. I was a committed pro-choice feminist, intellectually anti-Christian, and had every available misconception about Catholicism. All Catholicism had in its favor, as far as I was concerned, was its alleged institutional concern for the poor. I had acted out the … Read more