Pope Pius XI’s encyclical on atheistic communism, Divini Redemptoris, was promulgated on March 19, 1937, the feast of St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church and patron of workers. Almost 84 years later, his analysis, so far from being outdated, finds disturbing relevance to our own time and place. It seems fitting to take a…
Don’t you hate it when fellow Catholics say to you: “The Church has faced crises worse than this one before”? You hate it because you know it’s false. Of several popes who flirted with heresy, only two seem to have crossed a line: Honorius and John XXII. Honorius made one error in regard to Christology;…
Editor’s Note: In light of the news that Pope Francis has changed canon law to accommodate official women “lectors” and “acolytes,” we are re-publishing this article, which originally appeared here on July 17, 2015. In many contemporary debates concerning the priesthood, one rarely hears a genuinely theological account of what makes a priest a priest.…
Back around the turn of the millennium, I was invited one day to sing for the first time the Mass of the Dedication of a Church (Introit: Terribilis est locus iste), at a solemn Mass on the anniversary of a parish run by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. It was the first time I…
Truth is the first casualty of war—so goes an old saying. We see it verified again in the so-called “liturgy wars,” where, at least on the progressive side, no lie is too big or too bald, if only it can be repeated often enough to convince most people. If one can add a certain sacrilegious…
One of the greatest musicians in the history of mankind, and certainly among the greatest composers of the Western European tradition, Ludwig van Beethoven (1770–1827), was baptized 250 years ago on December 17, 1770. It is fitting on such a momentous anniversary to offer readers a brief overview of his life and work, highlighting several…
Let me begin with a massive understatement: the Bible is not an easy book, and few, too few, are the Catholics who make the study of it a regular part of their spiritual lives. Before we even delve into it, we are confronted by the fact that the Bible is really many books of many…
As she appears in her present earthly configuration, the Catholic Church has no credibility to the world, for she looks, speaks, and acts like the world: the world has claimed her, to make of her what it wants, to have its way with her. Or rather, those who speak and act on behalf of the…
A reader sent me the following question: Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, The question that all of Viganò’s essays and your own raises is: Why at this point should we remain in communion with the Catholic Church—you know, the one that most people (reasonably?) think is headed by Pope Francis and the bishops in communion with him?…
Without a doubt, the United States of America in 2020 is showing the world what a “republic” looks like when it degenerates into democracy, understood in Plato’s derogatory sense of the term. One of Western civilization’s most brilliant European white males, Shakespeare, has left us some memorable scenes about what “government of the people, by…
When the feast of St. Martin of Tours comes around each year—that’s November 11th, a day he shares on the Roman calendar with St. Mennas, a great soldier, desert solitary, and martyr in Egypt—I always think about food. The reason has nothing to do with Armistice Day. Rather, it’s because of the almost eight years…
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