Institutionalized adultery, incest, infanticide, shameless sexual abuse of children, and homosexuality. After about a hundred pages of overlap with Catholic truth, the fifth book of The Republic reminds one of the dark side of paganism. The shock of reading Plato talk so uninhibitedly about what we now know as horrific vice is refreshing, like a…
Thanksgiving has been one of my favorite holidays since I was a child, and it hasn’t changed much over the years. It may seem like the focus is on food more than thankfulness, but as a parent you don’t have to fight terribly hard to help your children remember what it’s all about. Cut out…
Editor’s note: this report originally appeared at the website of the Lepanto Institute. We have agreed to republish it to assist in sharing information about this important story. The Lepanto Institute was recently asked by a supporter if the Salesian Missions was a “safe charity” to donate to. Not knowing the answer, Lepanto Institute conducted…
Twenty-some years ago, I had a typical freshman year in college: studying, getting acclimated to dorm life, and training to go door-to-door to get people to “make a personal decision for Christ.” Wait, what? Didn’t you do that last one your freshman year? I guess that was unique to my experience as an Evangelical Protestant…
Editor’s note: as with all stories attempting to uncover what is transpiring behind the scenes at the Vatican, this report includes, by necessity, a certain amount of speculation based on information gleaned from unnamed sources. While the Italian press appears to have long-since accepted the blurring of the lines between reporting and rumor that is…
Since early October, Catholics have peeked through the looking glass to see if the Jabberwock of doctrinal plasticity could be slain. It is a destabilizing place to be. Never in their lifetime have most Catholics been here before. We watched, pawns in “a great huge game of chess that’s being played—all over the world—if this…
These days, the Universal Church is wending her way to the end of the liturgical year, which can be a bittersweet time for believers. As the days shorten and natural light diminishes, we are asked to remember the myriad witnesses who have gone before us “marked with the sign of faith.” Our long, rich history…
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, today’s “lone voice crying out in the wilderness” among our bishops — our Athanasius contra mundum –has laid out his thoughts on the recently-closed Synod in an exclusive analysis provided to Rorate Caeli. We offer them our sincere thanks for allowing us, and others, to reproduce it full, so that the truth may be…
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is a faithful Catholic who often writes about the Church. His latest column regarding the controversial Synod on the Family in Rome, “The Plot to Change Catholicism,” was strongly criticized in a letter to the editor by more than 50 signers, many of them theologians from Catholic colleges and universities.…
From a reader comes this list of the special indulgences that can be gained for the poor souls in purgatory during this week of the All Souls’ commemoration: You may already know this, but just in case you don’t, here is the info on indulgences you can obtain for the Poor Souls in Purgatory (each day…
No sooner was the latest bombshell report from Eugenio Scalfari on the musings of Pope Francis translated into English than we had our first noisy headline informing us of a Vatican “denial” of the same. In this latest iteration of the telephone game, Scalfari revealed the contents of a recent conversation he had with the Holy Father about…
