Nationalistic Saints
Saints such as Joan of Arc and Thomas More demonstrate that being holy does not mean being disengaged from public service.
Unlocking Genesis and Understanding Our Origins (Guest: Stephen Ray)
The Book of Genesis proposes answers to some of life’s most important—and most controversial—questions. But often readers misunderstand or miss those answers. How can we properly interpret this most important Biblical text?
The Secret to Overcoming Today’s Crisis: Sacred Scripture (Guest: Dr. John Bergsma)
I’m convinced that one of the best ways to overcome the crisis in the Church today is for Catholics to dive into Sacred Scripture. A new online program is designed to help Catholics to do just that.
The Book of Acts Does Not Support Communism
The fact that certain passages of Scripture express forms of communalism certainly does not mean they were practicing the 19th-century militantly atheistic ideology known as communism.
The Joys of Not Being a Scripture Scholar
Our business is to journey on in unceasing search of God, the sheer outpouring of whose Word upon the Scriptures suffuses every page with the presence of Another.
Confessions of a Creationist
Natural science is a great thing, and many great scientific advancements have helped us immensely. But evolutionary science is historically about as reliable as Faucian Bugle Science.
Another Progressive Academic Gets Scripture Wrong
Scholarship, like cooking, is as much a function of what one leaves out as much as what one puts in. Luke Timothy Johnson’s recent Commonweal essay on Scripture and trans-sexual issues is a case-in-point: what he chose to de-emphasize is as important (I would argue even more so) that what he emphasizes. Johnson seeks to … Read more
“Mutual Submission” between Husbands and Wives in Ephesians 5?
Since the promulgation of St. John Paul II’s Mulieris Dignitatem in 1988, Catholics often speak of a “mutual submission” between husbands and wives. Proponents of the idea of mutual submission between spouses, including John Paul himself and Pope Francis in Amoris Laetitia, often cite Ephesians chapter 5, and particularly verse 21—“submitting to one another out … Read more
Getting Scripture Wrong: A Response to Harriet Murphy
Dr. Harriet Murphy has taken a leap off a cliff of her own making in her broadside against my essay in Crisis on the female deaconate. She concludes that anyone (namely, me) who accepts the “literal” interpretation of 1 Tim 2:12-14—“I do not allow a woman to teach or exercise authority over a man”—is somehow … Read more
Undermining the Bible for Centuries
In parish lectures I am frequently confronted by parents distraught over their children’s experiences in their Bible courses at colleges and universities across the country. It is not only in the religion departments of state and private universities, but also in Catholic colleges and universities where their children encounter doubts and outright skepticism concerning the … Read more
Looking to Heaven Brings Blessings to Earth
In Catholic tradition, three senses of Scripture—the allegorical, the moral, and the anagogical—are built upon the foundation of the literal sense. According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church 117, in the anagogical sense we “view realities and events in terms of their eternal significance, leading us to our true homeland: thus the Church on … Read more
How Not to Interpret Scripture
There is a class that most college students will take at one point in their academic career. It is the course on Western Civilization—“Western Civ” for short. It is a feeble attempt to supplement the modern college curriculum (typically in two freshman-level courses) with what used to be the very backbone of a liberal education. … Read more
The Noah Film and Biblical Interpretation
Bible stories were an important part of my childhood. I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know that David slew Goliath and that Cain slew Abel. Meditations on Jacob’s deceitful usurping of Esau’s blessing, and on David’s lamentation over the dead Absalom, formed some of my earliest ideas about the nature of justice and … Read more
Using Fiction to Vindicate the Gospels
Recently, I reconnected with a friend from long ago, one of those “reunions” made possible, though impersonal, by the Internet. In the course of catching up with each other, one Facebook message at a time, he revealed that he had abandoned his once vibrant Christian faith because he could not overcome doubts provoked by the … Read more
The Promise and Fulfillment of Christmas
Some years ago, when I was recently ordained, it fell upon me to celebrate the Vigil Mass of Christmas at my parish. The pastor, as was his prerogative, always celebrated Midnight Mass, so the other parish Masses were divided between myself and the other associate. The gospel for the Christmas Vigil Mass is the beginning … Read more
Benedict XVI on the Christmas Readings
If your family regularly attends the evening Christmas vigil mass, on more than one occasion you may have dreaded the proclamation of the Gospel for this particularly liturgy: “Abijah the father of Asaph. Asaph became the father of Jehoshaphat, Jehoshaphat the father of Joram. Joram the father of Uzziah….” The list of names goes on … Read more
Friday Free-for-All: November 12
Time for a few Friday morning links: Yesterday the pope released Verbum Domini, an apostolic exhortation on Sacred Scripture. It’s a door-stop of a text — the 208-page PDF can be read here, or you can read excerpts via Zenit here. A Christian woman has been sentenced to death in Pakistan for “blasphemy.” Next week … Read more
Brokenness and Sin
A clergyman — an old friend, actually — remarked to me recently that he is inclined to view sin and hurt as synonymous. Such remarks arise, surely, from the wish to be compassionate. The idea would be that we mortals stagger along under such burdens and pains laid on us by heredity and environment that … Read more
Reading the Bible Like a Grown-Up
As we saw last week, antique atheists like Bill Maher still imagine that people who take the Bible seriously must read it literalistically, as he does. However, there is a difference between literalistic interpretation — which is the habit of all fundamentalists, whether atheist or Christian — and the literal sense of Scripture. The Catechism … Read more
What about the Day of Wrath?
My thoughts today may have particular import during Lent, but they touch on a subject that is much more far-reaching. Indeed, it is a topic that ought to be inscribed along the horizon of one’s imagination in some permanent form, if one is at all serious about his mortal (and, let’s face it, his eternal) … Read more