Background: A few years ago, a friend graciously asked me for permission to nominate me for a one-year visiting professorship at a Catholic College which was beginning a study of bias (as the focus for that professor’s teaching and research). …
Category: Catholic Life
On Catholicism and Identity Politics
An acquaintance of mine was once distraught upon learning that I celebrated Easter. From his reactions, it followed that he saw proclaiming the truth of Christianity as inseparable from a colonialist mindset and an implicit Western supremacism disparaging other religions …
A New Guide for Hymns at Mass, and Other Empty Words
Much has been said of a United States Catholic Bishop committee releasing a guide titled Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church. The guide has received cautious praise from Catholics, for it tackles many of the problems with post-Vatican …
President Trump Issues Proclamation Commemorating 850th Anniversary of the Martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket
It’s really a remarkable thing. This president and this White House, through all the chaos and bluster that seem to constantly surround both, have demonstrated a closeness to the Catholics of this nation that is really unprecedented. From President Trump …
It’s a Wonderful Life: 2020 Edition
There is a classic scene in Frank Capra’s It’s a Wonderful Life where George Bailey tells his guardian angel, Clarence, “I wish I’d never been born.” That is a statement which some others have likely uttered at some point in …
Now that the Foundations are Destroyed
“Relativism, that terribly effective bleach, has wiped out everything in its path.” –Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Day is Now Far Spent Precis: The foundations of the good political order are grounded upon, and are faithful to, virtues discovered by …
Rachel’s Lament: The Feast of the Holy Innocents
Image: Massacre of the Innocents, Peter Paul Rubens Memento mori: remember death. The last vestiges of colorful wrapping paper have not yet been whisked away by the garbage men. There is still leftover rib roast in the fridge. We have only …
+Viganò: 2020 Vatican Nativity Scene is “Blasphemous”
EN GREGE RELICTO[1] Considerations on the Nativity scene in Saint Peter’s Square At the center of Saint Peter’s Square, a metallic tensile structure dominates the scene, hastily decorated with a tubular light, underneath which stand, disturbing as totems, a few …
Chesterton Carol – A New Composition by 1P5’s Mark Nowakowski
There is a great deal of grotesquery in the world and in the Church. The controversy over the Vatican Nativity Scene this year — a kind of “art” I have described as “weaponized ugliness” — has certainly driven the point …
The Pope’s Religious Indifferentism Isn’t Just Wrong, It’s Downright Puzzling
I’ve written before about the rather significant indications that Pope Francis is a religious indifferentist, and why that’s a bad thing. Regular readers will require no additional explanation. In fact, most of us are absolutely sick to death of talking …
Read More