Signs of Hope: A Catholic Experience of Street Evangelization
Whereas we expect to be met with hostility when we attempt to share our Faith with others, often the experience is just the opposite.
The Incredible Shrinking Catholic Church
The Catholic Church in the U.S. has been in constant decline for 50 years, but that downward trend experienced three significant accelerations during that time. Find out what they are and what Catholics can do to reverse the downward spiral.
The Pope and Synod: Hangmen of the Great Commission
I will not follow this new synodal listening blueprint, and I will not oblige Pope Francis’ reproach of Catholic proselytization. I will listen to God. And I will hold fast to Christ’s words of the Great Commission.
What Will Draw the “Nones” Back to Church?
The number of Americans who claim no religious affiliation—dubbed “the Nones”—has been growing steadily for two decades. The Nones are now a slightly larger percentage of the American population than Catholics. But they are not all atheists: half say they believe in God. The problem for many of them is organized religion: over 70 percent … Read more
Beware the Pitfalls of Curial Reform
A structural reform of the Roman Curia has been one of the goals of Pope Francis and a reason why he was elected pope. Even some in the Curia support the idea. The last two major reforms were made by Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, yet many think what they did no longer … Read more
Evangelization and Doctrine Are Inseparable
We preach doctrine, and doctrine exists to be preached. If that sounds circular, then we understand correctly that doctrine and evangelization are two sides of the same coin. Recently announced plans for Pope Francis’s reform of the Roman Curia have produced euphoria among liberals and concern among conservatives that evangelization is being elevated over doctrine … Read more
Saving Fallen-Away Catholics with Luke Skywalker’s Help
How ought we to approach our family members and friends who have fallen away from the faith in the hopes of bringing them back? New survey data reports that, for the first time in our history, there are as many Americans with no religious affiliation as there are Catholics and Evangelicals. More significantly, of these … Read more
We Have a Better Story
There was a time when it was nigh impossible not to believe in God—not because of man’s irrational superstitions, as atheist popularizers tell it, but because of nature’s rational design. To early thinkers, the intelligibility of nature pointed to an ineluctable fact: a prime, non-contingent source of reality (i.e., the uncaused Cause, the One, Apeiron, … Read more
Do Muslims Need the Gospel?
Should Catholics evangelize Muslims? Currently there doesn’t seem to be much effort in that direction. For example, a recent Pew survey shows that 23 percent of Muslims in America no longer identify with that faith, and, of those, only 9 percent convert to a different faith. The other 91 percent effectively become secular. By the … Read more
Evangelizing the Secular Mind
Recently, a colleague inquired about how I successfully teach philosophy at a professional-minded college. As my colleague recognized, it is difficult to teach the liberal arts at a school where students embrace monetary practical values and goals. Through his query, I was reminded about how Catholics can evangelize with rhetorical mindfulness. Specifically, Catholics can begin … Read more
Why Are You Catholic?
Some people call me a street preacher. I’m not a street preacher. The label does roll off the tongue, but it also carries a fairly negative connotation. I could be more accurately described as a street questioner. I spend about a dozen Saturday mornings each year, standing on a street corner adjacent to the Farmer’s … Read more
Time for a Spiritual Health Assessment
The story of the rich man and Lazarus is more than a bracing reminder about our duty to the poor; it is a cautionary tale about misjudging our spiritual condition. In Jesus’s day, material wealth and well-being were commonly assumed to be divine blessings for personal righteousness: the rich were rich because of their moral … Read more
Sed Contra, Bishop Barron
Bishop Robert Barron’s work is the gold standard for Catholic evangelization. I met him while he was the theologian-in-residence at the North American College in Rome during my deacon year (2006-2007). He gave some outstanding conferences during his stay. I have read many but not all of his books and have seen quite a few of his videos. His … Read more
Confessions of a Guelph
Poor old Philippo Argenti languishes in the fifth circle of his Inferno, among those condemned for the sin of wrath. He treads water in the Styx, jostling with other damned souls to stay afloat; others sink beneath the surface, forever drowning but never dying. A contemporary of Dante’s, Argenti tries to climb aboard the boat … Read more
On Giving Catholic Books Away
Following Fr. Schall—who nudged me home to the Church some years back—I do a bit of evangelizing by recommending—or when feeling rich, giving—books to people. Hanging around secular universities the past 40 years, I’ve met a lot of left-liberal academics, most of whom are practical if not ideological atheists. Some of these are, like me, … Read more
The Church in the Wilderness
When looking at the American Catholic Church and the surrounding culture, the honest, orthodox Catholic is left with at least two sobering conclusions: we are losing the culture war both outside the American Catholic Church and inside its precincts. The Obergefell v. Hodges decision (same-sex “marriage”) by the SCOTUS put an exclamation point on the … Read more
The Consumer-Driven Church
A recent survey (August 2016) by the Pew Research Center reveals that American churches have produced a generation of spiritual consumers who want little more from their religious community than a good pulpiteer, a satisfying worship service, and a congregation filled with nice, friendly members. Researching the habits of U.S. Christians, Pew found that nearly … Read more
Okay, Now I Get the Good, the True and the Beautiful
The Appaloosa Music Festival opened my eyes to something I had been vaguely skeptical about, though vaguely skeptical might too weakly describe what I actually believed about the good, the true, and the beautiful (GTB). GTB can be a mode of evangelizing a hostile culture. But I had tended to view it as a way … Read more
Let Us Work Together: On Jewish-Christian Relations
Editor’s note: The following address was delivered on April 15, 2016 before the Harvard Hillel Society and is printed with permission of the author. I am so glad to be back in cooperation with the Harvard Hillel Society. Long, long ago, in about 1961, the Hillel Society and the Harvard Catholic Club almost at the … Read more
Give Me That Old-Time Evangelization
Recently, The World Over host, Raymond Arroyo, interviewed Cardinal Wuerl about the Synod on the Family and asked the cardinal, in various ways, whether the Synod was changing the Church’s teaching on reception of communion by divorced and remarried Catholics. Cardinal Wuerl identified the Synod as a manifestation of the “New Evangelization.” “We’re seeing different … Read more