Catholic Culture: Warning that the potential legalization of same-sex marriage could harm religious liberty and lead to the eventual legalization of polygamy and incest, Bishop Larry Silva of Honolulu strongly urged Hawaii’s Catholics to pray and take immediate action. “It … Continue reading
Category: Catholic Living
Mourning as an Act of Affirmation
In an unexpected way, my husband and I were recently led to a rather deep and deepening reflection on mourning (or mournfulness), and on its seeming incompatibility with human superficiality and human lukewarmness. We thereby also came to appreciate a … Continue reading
Attention Catholic Men: Get Dressed
(Reproduced with permission from The Catholic Gentleman.) Society is growing more and more casual. I have seen people shopping for groceries in their pajama pants and fuzzy slippers. I’ve been to world-class classical concerts where people are dressed in Hawaiian … Continue reading
If We Can Do Nothing Else We Owe the Christians of the Mid-East Fervent Prayers
AsiaNews, Fady Noun: A free people interpreting the pain Jesus endured, sharing it on the stages of work, in the mines, the hospitals, in the tombs of hope and its cradles provided the magnificent, dazzling show young Brazilians put on for … Continue reading
Death, Beauty, Transformation
“Death,” wrote poet Wallace Stevens, “is the mother of beauty.” Without putting his line in context, how might we interpret it? One interpretation could be that men make beautiful things, paintings, music, poems, to sweeten life in the face of … Continue reading
A New Road for Scouting?
The Boy Scouts were a huge part of my personal formation. At the age of nine I joined the Cubs, becoming successively a Bear and Webelo, and doing the usual Cub activities. This culminated with my entrance into the Boy … Continue reading
Belloc’s Verse on Our Lady and the Challenge of Faith
As we ourselves gratefully remember Hilaire Belloc this year, especially on the 60th Anniversary of his death, let us first consider “Courtesy,” his brief and evocatively allusive poem of seven short, rhymed stanzas (six four-line ones, and a final three-line … Continue reading
An Army for Our Lady: the Legion of Mary
Army? Why, one may ask, do we use military terms for anything associated with our gentle Queen, like army and legion? Military terms are not new in the Church. Indeed, as children in Catholic school, did we not learn to … Continue reading
Three Million Attend Pope’s Closing Mass in Rio
The Sacred Page: Speaking from a white stage on the sands of Copacabana on Sunday, Francis urged a crowd estimated at 3 million people to go out and spread their faith “to the fringes of society, even to those who seem … Continue reading
Pope Stresses Confession, Long Lines of Penitents, Plenary Indulgence
CNA: Young people from around the world stood in long lines on Rio’s Copacabana Beach to take part in the Sacrament of Reconciliation during World Youth Day. “It’s a beautiful experience to be reconciled to God during this World Youth Day,” … Continue reading
Gardner, MA, Doctor Practices Medicine In Line With Catholic Moral Teaching
Our Sunday Visitor: Dr. Paul Carpentier, founder of In His Image Family Medicine in Gardner, Mass., said he doesn’t have an especially unusual mission. “It’s just one of stewardship,” he said. “I intend to do the best I can with the … Continue reading
Bishop Says Woman Slain by Enraged Homosexual Was a ‘Martyr’
Father Z’s Blog: CNSNews: A Catholic mother who was brutally murdered by a gay man because she challenged him about his homosexual lifestyle “died as a martyr for her faith,” according to Bishop Thomas Paprocki, head of the Catholic diocese in Springfield, Ill., … Continue reading
The Charity of Song
Saint Augustine famously said cantare amantis est, that is, “singing belongs to one who loves” (s. 336, 1 – PL 38, 1472). (Josef Pieper wrote a book on this, and Robert Hickson gave a talk on it.) Apparently, the Doctor … Continue reading
Modern Noise and Man’s Ingrained Inattentiveness
This brief essay proposes to consider how two eloquent Catholic authors, Hilaire Belloc and Evelyn Waugh, describe and deal with the phenomenon of noise, an unmistakable mark of the intrusive modern world even in times of putative peace. The first … Continue reading