The following editorial by Father Peter Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., appears in the current (May/June) issue of The Catholic Response magazine. It is posted here with Father’s permission. When the Extraordinary Synod on the Family was announced and when it concluded, I promised our readers ongoing reflections on the Church’s understanding of marriage and the family, particularly…
(Editor’s note: this is Part III of a three-part essay. You can read Part I here and Part II here.) Part III According to George Cardinal Pell, the build up to the Second Vatican Council “was an enormously exciting time, a time of great intellectual ferment. We were caught up in this great movement of reform,…
Amid all of the coverage of Bishop Robert Finn’s resignation on Tuesday was a very telling quote from the former chancellor of the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph. Jude Huntz, who was chancellor under Finn from 2011 until August 2014, when he left to become the Director of the Office for Peace and Justice in…
Here is an idea I’d like to propose to my brother priests. Make the Sacrament of Confession as accessible as possible. For me, I knew it was difficult (if not impossible), to sit over in Church in the Confessional all day. Parish life is quite a bit more demanding than the days of St. John…
Darwinism can be used to back up two mad moralities, but it cannot be used to back up a single sane one. The kinship and competition of all living creatures can be used as a reason for being insanely cruel or insanely sentimental; but not for a healthy love of animals. On the evolutionary basis…
Enthusiastic about Jesus’ message of love, tolerance and mercy, Abner was one of Christ’s earliest followers. At times, however, he was concerned that Jesus didn’t always deliver this core message of acceptance and compassion. This is his story… All Are Welcome At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus declared, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven…
It’s not every day that a little ol’ city boy from San Francisco gets to have dinner with mega-media-giant-turned-gospel-patriot Glenn Beck. No sir indeed; however, every once in a while, something extraordinary happens and the impossible, well, becomes possible. In this case, it took the murder of a girl and a friendship with her brother,…
Several years ago my Pastor, Fr. Dennis Gordon, FSSP, asked me if I would build him a portable altar to house an altar stone from the Cristeros era. He had seen some of my carpentry skills through work I had done at a relative’s house, so he thought I might be up for the challenge. I first…
For most Americans, it was a brutal winter. We live in a house with drafty old windows, and our heating system — designed for a more temperate climate — was not up to the task of fighting off the incessant cold. The greatest weapon in our arsenal in our war against shivering has been our trusty kerosene heater. Where we…
“[T]he decline of a language must ultimately have political and economic causes: it is not due simply to the bad influence of this or that individual writer. But an effect can become a cause, reinforcing the original cause and producing the same effect in an intensified form…. [Language] becomes ugly and inaccurate because our thoughts…
We all know the story: Adam and Eve, the perfected human beings who are the parents of our entire race, were placed into the lush, fruited environs of the Garden of Eden and given dominion over it. Robed only in their innocent, unblemished flesh, they were called to fecundity, temporal bliss and communion with their…
