In May of 2016, a relative of mine was blessed to participate in a retreat in Germany about the spirituality of Saint Maximilian Kolbe and his Militia Immaculatae (MI). The retreat master was Father Karl Stehlin of the Society of St. Pius X, who himself helped to re-start the MI with its original charism and…
I know a lot of Catholic dads, and I’m pretty sure the Father’s Day card makers don’t know the same dads I do. The problem is not just the clichés (neckties), and it’s not just the cheesiness (“For The Man I Love” in a font with lots of curlicues). They miss so much about these…
When it comes to fatherhood, I’m a bit of a mess. Despite all the opportunities seven children provide, I’ve realized I’m not very good at it. Despite the feelings of paternal affection I have for my amazing children, I struggle immensely in my attempts to understand, on a practical level, what they truly require from me. I…
“For the wages of sin is death. But the grace of God, life everlasting, in Christ Jesus our Lord.” – Romans 6:23 “Out of one hundred thousand sinners who continue in sin until death, scarcely one will be saved.” -Saint Jerome When I was a young man, one of my uncles told me about something he…
I have developed a spiritual routine over the past few years that serves me well. It has helped to keep me focused, driven and on track. But, lately I have been reduced by my own willfulness. I was definitely not a shining example of penance and mortification this past Lenten season. I did manage to…
“So you think I’m a sinner?” I had just finished giving a parish talk to a group of about 40 people on the topic of mercy. In my talk I noted that everyone needs mercy, because we’re all sinners. I didn’t particularly dwell on the topic, but I made clear that our sinful nature, and…
Internet veterans are familiar with “Godwin’s Law.” Formally stated, the adage proposes that “As an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches.” No matter the argument, if it goes on long enough, someone will evoke the modern epitome of evil – Nazism – to condemn his opponents. If a…
I didn’t have cable television until I was in the second grade. I remember it clearly. It was February, 1984. I walked down the hill from the school I attended just two blocks away in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. As I arrived at home, my mother greeted me outside and told me about our new acquisition. I…
Part I | Part II Gregory XVI was the first of the modern Popes to address the central role of biblical studies in the advance of the Modernist heresy within the Church. In his 1844 encyclical Inter Praecipuas, Pope Gregory explains that the enemies of the Church actively promote the publication and dissemination of vernacular…
Part I | Part II With man being wholly dependent upon God as upon his Creator and Lord, and created reason being absolutely subject to uncreated truth, we are bound to yield to God, by faith in His revelation, the full obedience of our intelligence and will. And the Catholic Church teaches that this faith,…
If you’ve spent any time looking at Catholic Prophecy on the Internet, you’ve no doubt seen the excerpted portions of the visions of Blessed Anne Catherine Emmerich on the “relationship between two popes” and the “baleful consequences” of the “false Church” that would supposedly follow. The way it is usually excerpted looks like this: “I saw also the…
