“Three things are too wonderful for me, yes, four I cannot understand: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship on the high seas, and the way … Continue reading
Category: «Ad Rem» A Fortnightly Email Message from the Prior
«Ad Rem» is our Prior’s fortnightly email message offering news and commentary regarding the Slaves of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, the Crusade of St. Benedict Center, and issues affecting the universal Church. Each number offers brief, ad rem (“to the point”) commentary on timely or otherwise important matters. Click here to subscribe to our email list and receive the «Ad Rem» each time it’s published.
The British Invasion
The Spanish and French strove to make America Catholic, with varying degrees of success. Sometimes the enemies of the Faith — both fleshly and ghostly — won out; at other times, the missionaries scored victories, as with Saint Augustine, Florida, … Continue reading
More Catholic Than You Think
This Ad Rem is being written at a distance from home (near Fort Worth, Texas, to be almost precise). It seemed a good idea to share with readers part of the message of the Catholic America Tour. Though the talk … Continue reading
A Prayer for the Distracted
This prayer may provide some helpful thoughts to the Christian who finds himself in Church, or anywhere, totally distracted and unable to pray. Please note that I have employed the capitalization standards of the Douay Rheims Bible, so as to … Continue reading
Why God Hates Sin
To hear the words, “God hates sin,” may, for certain modern men, invoke images of a deity too demanding to be very comfortable. Such moderns would find the proposition savoring of a dogmatism that borders on the primitive. For them, … Continue reading
The Right Stuff: On Barack Obama and the Conversion of America
Of what stuff are you made? Is it — to borrow a line from Saint Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons — “the stuff of which martyrs are made”? This is a question we would do well to … Continue reading
Catholic America Tour through Midwest, South, and Eastern Seaboard
The Catholic America Tour is planning a road trip, a big one. And we need your help to make it successful. We will cut a CAT path from New Hampshire to Saint Louis, down to Texas, over to Florida, and … Continue reading
Two Perfect Women
On this vigil of the Our Lord’s Nativity, my thoughts are on two perfect women. The promise of another installment on Father Arnold Damen is not forgotten. It is being kept, but the piece I began to write grew to … Continue reading
Father Arnold Damen, Chicago’s Jesuit Apostle
Enjoying a varied reputation as pioneering parish priest, educational trail-blazer, inspiring mission preacher, formidable religious controversialist, and, oh yes, a ghost that haunts historical buildings on Chicago’s Near West Side, Father Arnold Damen, S.J., is an important figure in American … Continue reading
Cardinal Biffi versus ‘A Mysterious Cabal of Maniacs’
Not afraid to call a spade a spade, and deeply grounded in the Scriptures and the fathers of the Church, the scrappy and erudite Cardinal Giacomo Biffi has done it again. When his last book was published, we wrote Cardinal … Continue reading
Be an Apostle, and How
In Ad Rem 89, I promised some thoughts on winning converts. Specifically, I said I would answer this question: “How do you tell someone he needs to convert without sounding rude or judgmental, or just turning him off?” Now I … Continue reading
Rome’s Purgatory Museum: A November Pilgrimage
(Last time, I promised to follow up Ad Rem 89 with some concrete advice. This will come, God willing, but first something more timely for November.) Fingerprints burned into a prayer book. A clearly visible charred hand print on a … Continue reading
Don’t Be an Anti-Apostle
Laudetur Iesus Christus! It can happen to anyone. You’re having a conversation; it ventures onto religious topics; you state some of the truth-claims of the Catholic Church. Then, unexpectedly, your interlocutor connects the dots and asks an alarmingly direct question. … Continue reading
Two Words, Almost
A priest I knew, who went to seminary in Rome, told me about an old professor that would introduce some thoughts with the words: “due parole…,” which means “two words” in Italian. The joke was that this old priest would … Continue reading
Quit Whining!
The Thirteenth Annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is history. As usual, the 70-mile walk from The Lake of the Blessed Sacrament (a.k.a. “Lake George”) to the Shrine of the North American Martyrs in Auriesville, NY, was as grace-filled as it was … Continue reading
