At Mass this morning, a baby girl was sitting in the pew directly in front of me. She had wide, inquisitive eyes and dark, fuzzy hair that stood on end. Her carrier was turned in such a way that she was staring right at me throughout the first parts of the Mass, and every time…
A Guest Essay by Willem Jacobus Cardinal Eijk Archbishop of Utrecht This chapter is taken from Eleven Cardinals Speak on Marriage and the Family ©2015 Ignatius Press. It is reprinted with permission. All rights reserved. Editor’s Note: Through the gracious assistance of a reader, we were given permission to re-print this text from the so-called “Eleven Cardinals Book”, issued…
Image: Baptism illumination, circa 13th century. Although few things can match the natural beauty of a fall day in the upper Midwest, I still vividly recall my wife and myself making our way from the cool outside air into the hushed baptistry of our local cathedral, to witness the striking splendor of the Sacrament of…
It is a cool, dark Montana night in early May as we head west from Bozeman toward the Idaho border. Sheets of rain fall intermittently through our drive as we pull our recently acquired utility trailer up and over the passes that divide East from West, Atlantic from Pacific, Montana from Idaho. We are transporting…
My article – regarding the dilemma created for Catholic lawyers related to whether or not the local ordinary’s permission is required before seeking a civil divorce – has received a reply from the internet’s pre-eminent canon lawyer, Edward Peters. Since I am not a canon lawyer, I welcome any correction from a competent authority (and blogmeister Dr.…
We live in an age of demagoguery, where would-be petty tyrants grasp at power from behind the stalking horses of “oppressed” or “powerless” surrogates. We must “help the kids” or “save the planet” or do something-or-other for the peripheral groups of people who live at the margins of society. (Or is that the marginalized groups…
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from the recently-published book The Old Evangelization by 1P5 author Eric Sammons, published by Catholic Answers Press. One day, back when I was a diocesan director of evangelization, I was meeting with a pastor and some of his staff about launching evangelization efforts in their parish. The pastor had a sincere…
Image: Statue of Saint Germaine Cousin by Alexandre Falguière – by Wikimedia Commons Germaine Cousin was a 16th-century shepherdess who lived from 1579 to 1601. Born with a lame right hand and the disease scrofula (a non-tuberculous infection of the lymph nodes of the neck), she projected quite an unsightly appearance. The only child of…
Walking the Road to God: Why I Left Everything Behind and Took to the Streets to Save Souls Fr. Lawrence Carney Caritas Press, 2016 210 pages $5.99 Kindle; $14.95 Paperback Walking the Road to God is a moving account of the mission and dream of Fr. Lawrence Carney, a traditional priest serving now as chaplain to the…
I was recently asked by a number of people: “When ought one to point out liturgical abuses and endeavor to correct them?” My interlocutors had been confused by a number of partial truths. Let us, then, exclude several erroneous answers. “To correct an abuse, you need to have perfect charity and disinterested motives.” No man…
A New Cocktail for the Old Rite Next week marks the tenth anniversary of Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum, which on July 7, 2007 granted all priests the right to use the 1962 Roman Missal without the permission of their bishop and which has resulted in a slow but ready rise in celebrations of the…
