I have been rather astounded and amused at the controversy, indeed outright denial, surrounding Pope Emeritus Benedict’s recent essay which attributes a large portion of our current crisis in the Church to the Sexual Revolution of the 1960s. I react in this way simply because the evidence for the identification of the source of our [...]

Notre Dame brûle! (“Our Lady is burning!”) News flashes and sirens spread this horrible news Monday night at the start of Holy Week 2019. One of the most beautiful and iconic cathedrals in the world, visited by more people than any other monument in Europe or the world, was engulfed in flames during the most [...]

The White House announced on March 28 that the month of April is designated as National Child Abuse Prevention Month. On its official website, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops explains: “Every April, child and youth serving organizations, including Catholic dioceses, parishes, and schools, participate in National Child Abuse Prevention Month to highlight the [...]

Why the uproar from some Catholic pundits regarding the recently released essay on the abuse crisis from Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI? I think it’s pretty simple—regardless of what else one thinks of Benedict (and most of the critics were never fans of his), he speaks and writes with a voice that is truly paternal. The [...]

The New York Times has spent this past week in a less than subtle attack on clerical celibacy, insinuating it as the cause of the current crisis in the Church. On the eve of the Vatican summit on The Protection of Minors in the Church, the Times, in a panic that homosexuality will be blamed [...]

“Can a woman forget her nursing child that she should have no compassion for the son of her womb?”  ∼ Isaiah, 49:15 “Every man is in a direct relationship with God. Faith claims no more for the first man than for each one of us, and vice versa no more for us than for the first [...]

How many tax collectors might have worked in first century Palestine? Every time Jesus of Nazareth associated with sinners, his pariahs of choice were tax collectors. He uttered the phrase “tax collectors and sinners” over a dozen times in the Synoptic Gospels and paired tax collectors and prostitutes—notably smacking the Pharisees with, “Truly I tell [...]

Just weeks before the Catholic Church’s summit on the sexual abuse crisis, the faithful became privy to Pope Francis’s rather unorthodox views on sexual morality. In a book length interview  with Frenchman Dominque Wolton, who accompanied Pope Francis to World Youth Day in Panama, the pope concurs with Wolton’s premise that the most radical message [...]

“It’s time to face up to the harms the Sexual Revolution has caused. Whether you’re male or female, straight or gay, young or old, religious or irreligious: what kind of a world do you want to help create? A world in which every child has a legally recognized right to a relationship with both parents? [...]

A priest of the Chicago archdiocese, Fr. Paul Kalchick, has been disciplined by his bishop for burning a Nazi flag that had been lying in a closet somewhere. It was left over from many years before, when German Catholics wanted very much to believe, along with plenty of temporizers, trimmers, and German bishops, that National [...]

Miami police arrested two priests for “lewd and lascivious behavior.” One of them was also charged with “indecent exposure.” The two priests were in a parked car in a public place, performing a “sex act.” As the policeman noted, “there were no tints on the windows.” Let’s talk about these two men, and what this [...]

At a time when there are persistent rumors emanating from the Vatican of a “revision” of Humanae Vitae, there comes a film showing why fifty years on the 1968 encyclical and what it teaches needs greater proclamation not revision. Unprotected: A Pope, the Pill, and the Perils of Sexual Chaos is a new film produced [...]

Sooner or later, in some way or another, there will be an investigation as a result of the revelations concerning Cardinal McCarrick. The idea seems to be to discover what, within the structure of the Church, went wrong to allow for the abuse scandal to happen. I’m not certain that’s the problem. The problem, to [...]

In September of 1966, Margaret Sanger, the outspoken public voice of the Sexual Revolution and founder of Planned Parenthood, died in Tucson, Arizona. Sanger was a passionate sexual libertine whose selfishness extended even towards her own family. Finding child-rearing tedious, she abandoned her three children to caretakers so that she could move about in the [...]

I am hurtling in a high-speed train from Glasgow to London, with a heavy heart saying farewell to my native land, a sentiment that should live within us all. It is the memorial of Saint Charbel Maklouf, a Lebanese priest, ascetic, and mystic, as well as the vigil of Saint James the Greater, whose feast [...]

“Therefore, since we have this ministry through the mercy shown us, we are not discouraged. Rather, we have renounced shameful, hidden things; not acting deceitfully or falsifying the word of God, but by the open declaration of the truth we commend ourselves to everyone’s conscience in the sight of God.” (2 Cor. 4: 1-2) It [...]

When one is looking for a good dose of reality and common sense, there are few better places than a Jane Austen novel. Entertaining they are, but also scattered with drops of wisdom that run counter to our modern notions. For example, take the idea of “change” (often coupled with “hope”); today this idea is [...]

A recent article in The Wall Street Journal brought home just how our attitudes about sexual relationships have become dangerously trivial and mechanical. It showed how we have lost the sense of decency, morality, and shame. The article reported on new apps that allow those who engage in casual relationships to tell each other what [...]

Consider the life cycle of the penguin versus that of the sea turtle: Penguins only lay one or two eggs per year. They take very good care of their young, devoting much effort to making sure that the eggs hatch and that the little penguins remain safe and warm. The idea is to have few [...]