More is the pity that you did not know, but April 6 is National Twinkie Day, a day to celebrate that scrumptious little cake that, left uneaten and alone, will likely last until the end of days.  Frankly, I did not know when National Twinkie day was either, but when someone mentioned it on Facebook, [...]

In Lent, we confront the barrier between us and God, our sinfulness and many personal sins. For this, prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are recommended, but a guidebook is also useful. Dante’s Purgatorio is one of the best I know. The crisis in the world is always a crisis of sin. For over forty years, I [...]

Recently, a PBS attorney was caught by Project Veritas suggesting that children from “Trump homes” should be taken from their parents and re-educated. PBS denounced this slip of the tongue in a public manner and has suggested that this is not indicative of any pattern of behavior. Considering PBS's reputation (the only public broadcasters that [...]

Last week, Rene Rasmussen wrote an excellent piece alerting us to the unfortunate situation involving Abby Johnson’s planned speech at the Catholic University of America. For those who missed it, the CUA student pro-life group had invited Johnson and then, facing pressure from various students and, unfortunately, the university chaplain, cancelled the event. (Fortunately, the [...]

First, what this is not: This article does not argue that we must hold Ash Wednesday services as usual, nor does it argue that scattering ashes on Ash Wednesday is perfectly licit and no one who really understands the Catholic faith can object. Instead, it argues that lack of planning ahead and understanding what’s at [...]

In July 2019, Rafael Zaki was expelled from the Max Rady College of Medicine in Manitoba for refusing to change views he expressed about gun ownership and abortion on his personal Facebook page. According to the university, these posts constituted non-academic misconduct. Zaki, a Coptic Christian with strong pro-life views, emigrated from Egypt with his [...]

Recently a local Catholic homeschool group announced a “Mom’s Day of Reflection” at a Catholic community center. The day would allow homeschool moms—those most harried of creatures—to have a chance to relax, reflect, and recharge. There was just one problem: one of the moms didn’t think the group would enforce mask-wearing sufficiently at the event. [...]

“If you forgive men their trespasses,” says Jesus, “your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Mt. 6:14-15). In permitting divorced and remarried Catholics to partake of the Eucharist, Pope Francis may seem to have such words in mind, words [...]

“To make us love our country, our country ought to be lovely.” So wrote Edmund Burke, the Anglo-Irish Protestant statesman whose Reflections on the Revolution in France is considered one of the finest political treatises of modern conservatism. Perhaps Burke’s sentiment seems overly simplistic—of course we will like things that are likeable. Yet it is [...]

Although many of us eagerly await the upcoming release of Crisis contributor Austin Ruse’s new book titled Under Siege: No Finer Time to be a Catholic (Crisis Publications, 2021), we cannot help but wonder which Catholics he is referring to in the subtitle. Certainly, it has been a fine time for the Catholic President Joseph [...]

It’s a dark time for faithful Catholics in America. The president declares himself a “devout” Catholic, but his policies openly defy the moral teachings of the Church. The vice-president is an ardent anti-Catholic who has shown a taste for authoritarianism. But what’s happening in the nation’s capital is only a disturbing reflection of our broader [...]

As I walked through the busy Stuff-Mart, I felt an increasing sense of isolation and the faint stirrings of panic. It had been only two weeks since the governor's mask mandate was ordered and I was not adapting well. My husband chatted with me while we shopped but his words sounded like muffled gibberish from [...]

I have to admit many prejudices. I don’t usually read anything recommended by Father James Martin, SJ. I usually avoid the National Catholic Reporter, as forever burned in my memory from one of their articles—by the redoubtable Rosemary Radford Ruether—is the most fatuous line I have ever read: “The recent election of Joseph Ratzinger as [...]

After decades of playing its own executioner, perhaps it has come to this for the generally infertile American Catholic education system: it will be only the finger of God working through heroes that will come to the rescue of its lost children. As we enter "Celebrate Catholic Schools Week," it would be good to find [...]

Sometimes I think that a people more starved for beauty has never walked the earth. And it is a scandal that our Church does not help. We talk, for example, about “the planet,” but not about woods, hedgerows, small streams, sparrows, badgers, rocks, and moors. The poet Wordsworth could sense, in his memories of the [...]

We are currently witnessing the greatest catechetical crisis in the history of the Church. In 2018, Pope Francis revised the Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) to change its teaching on the death penalty—a controversy that continues to be challenged by cardinals, bishops, priests, and theologians around the world. But that was just the beginning. [...]

In a recent article for Crisis, Father Dwight Longenecker voiced his frustration with trying to unify his parish in the midst of what seems like national disintegration. He is right to be concerned, because as the Church goes, so goes the nation (and the world). The odd thing is that the Church had, in her [...]

As we’ve all heard, Twitter and other social media platforms are intensifying their crackdown on any Wrong Opinions that might be expressed on their platforms. I decided to test Twitter’s policies by making the following tweet: Read closely: I’m simply stating my own beliefs, which, although they are considered controversial today, are all simply statements [...]

On Thursday, Vatican News confirmed that both Pope Emeritus Benedict and Pope Francis have received the currently available COVID-19 vaccines, themselves providing an example, ostensibly, for the Church as a whole. In the world’s eyes, I suspect this spells the end of any claim a Catholic might otherwise make for religious exemption to required reception [...]

“Praised be Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary, His most holy Mother! Come to prayer, Sisters, come to praise the Lord!” It is 4:00 a.m. and fifteen Carmelite sisters arise to this call, dating back to the days of their foundress, Saint Terese of Avila. They make their way to the stone chapel, where they [...]