This paper was written in preparation for a talk at the 2006 Saint Benedict Center Conference. My talk — which was not a mere reading of the paper — is available on CD and MP3. The conference’s theme was “Catholic … Continue reading
Category: Articles
The United Nations and the Vatican
As noticed in our last instalment, the Holy See under the last several Pontiffs has chosen to collaborate with the United Nations in a number of areas, apparently in hopes that “creative engagement” may guide that body in better directions … Continue reading
Biblical Inerrancy
Yesterday, Thursday, April 12, 2012, a notice was posted on the Vatican Information Service (VIS) blog, announcing that the Pontifical Biblical Commission is soon to take up the subject “Inspiration and Truth in the Bible.” Here is the full text … Continue reading
Missing the Moment?
Soon after the HHS contraception mandate was handed down, the prior of Saint Benedict Center, Brother Andre Marie, posted on this website some lines about there having arisen “a teaching moment,” an opportunity for the bishops of the country to … Continue reading
Burden of Being a Good Reformer: Protestants and Birth Control
In the matter of the much-discussed HHS “contraception mandate,” the violation of our God-given, constitutionally protected rights is the principal matter at hand. These rights, of course, are based on our duty to follow the moral law. All individuals of … Continue reading
Solving a Two Thousand Year-Old Mystery
Review of The Bones of Saint Peter by John Evangelist Walsh. Sophia Institute Press, 2011. This fascinating and fairly short volume (178 pages) is a reprint of the original published in 1982. It tells the story of the search for … Continue reading
Auriesville Pilgrimage for Restoration Mixes Tradition, Vitality
The 2012 annual Pilgrimage for Restoration is scheduled for Friday-Sunday, September 28-30. This will mark the seventeenth time that a merry band of Catholic pilgrims cuts a path from Lake George to Auriesville, New York, doing penance all the way. This … Continue reading
The Church and Globalism, Part I
For many orthodox Catholics, the word “globalization” immediately raises hackles — it evokes fears of loss of national sovereignty, of undesirable immigration, of Masonic conspiracy: in a word, the spectre of a Satanic “One-World Government.” Images of the Bilderbergers, the … Continue reading
The Dangers of Scientism (December, 1946)
If a man were to say to me, “I refuse to use my eyesight except through a microscope,” I might think that the man is queer or crazy, and I would certainly try to avoid his company. Imagine taking a … Continue reading
The Devastation of Catholic Europe: Some Causes and Consequences of the Protestant Revolt
Introduction “Let us clearly understand the meaning of these words — Catholic, Protestant, and Reformation. Catholic means universal, and the religion which takes this epithet was called universal because all Christian people of every nation acknowledged it to be the … Continue reading
Thoughts Triggered by the Firing of Pat Buchanan
Pat Buchanan was recently fired from MSNBC after a ten-year association. Pat and I worship at the same extraordinary-rite Sunday Mass in the nation’s capital, but I haven’t had a chance to speak to him since his firing. I have … Continue reading
Mathematics and Christian Education
Nothing could be more distinctive of the age in which we live than the overpowering prominence of mathematics. All through the Catholic centuries, arithmetic and geometry constituted all the mathematics that an educated Christian was asked to learn. Even these … Continue reading
The Law of Causality and Sola Scriptura
I do not expect that the following argument is going to win a Protestant to the Catholic Faith. I have learned from St. Thomas Aquinas that reason has its limits in persuasion, and when reason reaches the wall, Grace is … Continue reading
A Frightening Future If We Do Not Change
Review of Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive to 2025? by Patrick J. Buchanan, Thomas Dunne Books, 2011 This 428 page book, containing copious notes in the end note section (1104 of them to be exact), is so jam-packed … Continue reading
Suggested Lenten Penances
The best penances are those that God sends us. These penances are immediately consequent upon His “will signified,” that is, the natural moral law and any positive law to which we are bound in conscience, e.g., the Church’s laws on … Continue reading
