Renewing Catholic Schools
Any authentic revival demands a firm episcopal commitment to ensure that every Catholic child receives a genuinely Catholic education.
We’re Headed for the Catacombs
“I expect to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square. His successor will pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.” — Francis Cardinal George I had … Read more
For Catholics, There’s Only One Choice
As the grandson of immigrants, I was raised to think that to be Catholic automatically meant being a Democrat; after all, it was the Democratic Party that had been so involved in assisting the newly-arrived with possibilities for financial security and upward mobility. The first presidential election in which I could vote (as a seminarian … Read more
What You Can Do to Help Our Priests
The priesthood of Jesus Christ, in which every Christian priest shares, is the source of holiness in the Church and the impetus for all evangelization. Through the ministry of the priest, Christ’s lay faithful are nourished with the Word of Life and the Bread of Life; their sanctification makes possible the sanctification of the world. … Read more
I Tell You a Mystery
“Behold! I tell you a mystery.” — Corinthians 15:51 How many of us have been energized by that line from Handel’s “Messiah”, which leads into the magnificent trumpet flourish and aria, announcing the resurrection of the dead? But what is a mystery? Let us say what it is not: it is not a story akin … Read more
‘Answer Quickly, O Virgin’
On this solemnity which celebrates the high-water point in the history of salvation, permit me to explore with you three Latin expressions. The first is, verbum caro factum est: “The Word became flesh.” We find this line, of course, in the Prologue to St. John’s Gospel, and the Epistle to the Hebrews tells us that … Read more
Joining Our Lady at the Foot of the Cross
Very early in this Lent of 2020, we celebrate a votive Mass, which invites us to take our place at the foot of the Cross with the Mother of Sorrows. Popular piety has identified seven “dolors” of the Blessed Virgin: the prophecy of Simeon; the flight into Egypt; the loss of the Boy Jesus; the … Read more
The Model Priest for a Church in Crisis
In his spiritual autobiography, Apologia pro Vita Sua, Blessed John Henry Newman informs us: “When I was fifteen (in the autumn of 1816), a great change of thought took place in me. I fell under the influences of a definite Creed, and received into my intellect impressions of dogma, which, through God’s mercy, have never … Read more