Last Sunday’s Gospel reading, taken from Matt. 13:24-30, struck me — as the readings so often have in recent months — as eerily applicable to our present moment: AT THAT time, Jesus spoke this parable to the multitudes: “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a man that sowed good seed in his field. But…
Image: Salzburg, Austria Today, on 7 February 2017, the Austrian Auxiliary Bishop Andreas Laun of Salzburg has published on the Catholic website Kath.net a commentary on the current situation in the Church with regard to the papal document Amoris Laetitia and its cumulative effects. Bishop Laun speaks about a German priest who now works in…
Image: Werdenberg, Sankt Gallen, Switzerland In the wake of an indisputably liberalizing Pastoral Letter on Marriage and the Family as published by the German Bishops two days ago, there comes now to us a more encouraging event from the neighboring country of Switzerland. One Swiss Bishop now publicly defends the traditional Catholic teaching on marriage. Bishop…
The other night, while my husband and older two sons, ages 10 and 12, prepared for D.C.’s March for Life, our home became as crazy and cacophonic as my Facebook feed. An electric saw echoed up from the basement as it sliced through a cast off wood pile, again and again, searching for the perfect…
The following is Part III of a series. Read Part I, Part II, and Part IV at the links. Asking Questions and Reading the Signs The current confusion in the Church has been compared to the Arian crisis. When priests, bishops, and other Church leaders start to do and teach strange things, each Catholic has to…
Editor’s note: The following is Part II of a four-part series. Read Part I, Part III, and Part IV at the links. The Sacred Liturgy “Lex orandi, lex credendi.” The order of Mass expresses and teaches Catholic doctrine. The changes to the Mass, sadly, are an example of a break from tradition – a “hermeneutic of…
We’ve all seen the video of “Doctor” Nucatola of Planned Parenthood, discussing with revolting dispassion — over lunch and a glass of wine — the methods by which babies are dissected alive, “crushed” in certain strategic places, and have their their organs surgically removed for resale. Planned Parenthood Federation of America President Cecile Richards took…
On January 24, 2008, my very first piece of professional writing was published. Marking a controversial foray into a several-year position as a columnist and blogger at InsideCatholic (later to be re-branded under its original name, Crisis Magazine), I told anyone who cared to listen why I had not attended the March for Life just two days before:…
My husband and I have long had a specific goal of raising children who are innocent — not ignorant. We homeschool and make careful choices as to what our six boys read and the movies they watch. So often, these choices of ours are misunderstood by friends and family. Like recently, when a neighbor was over…
Editor’s note: The following is the first part of a series. Read Part II, Part III, and Part IV at the links. I. Introduction What is going on in the Church these days? How to understand the origin of our present dilemmas, and what to do about them? Like many of you, I’ve wrestled with…
This week is book-ended with woman-centered marches in our nation’s capital, the Women’s March and the March for Life. The first touted the “rights” of women and trumpeted the need for “progress.” The second seeks progress, too; it urges society to leave behind the dated and detrimental notion that a woman must be allowed to…
