Author’s note: I originally wrote this elsewhere, 9 years ago this Sunday, on the day my grandmother died. I’ve been thinking about her this morning, on what would have been her 96th birthday. After re-reading what I wrote back then, unable to keep the tears from flowing, I wanted to share her – her light, her…
As she appears in her present earthly configuration, the Catholic Church has no credibility to the world, for she looks, speaks, and acts like the world: the world has claimed her, to make of her what it wants, to have its way with her. Or rather, those who speak and act on behalf of the…
“He that walketh with the wise, shall be wise: a friend of fools shall become like to them” (Proverbs 13:20 DRB). There are, I know, exceptions to this “rule,” but let’s stipulate that men who enter the priesthood are good guys: They like people, generally interact well with people, expect good things from other people,…
Holy relics are a distinctive feature of Catholicism. Would you expect to see the bones of some ancient martyr on display at your local Evangelical church? To most non-Catholics, holy relics are just plain weird. Sadly, veneration of holy relics even among Catholics has also been a practice often relegated to “old-fashioned” Catholics—a quasi-superstitious holdover…
A reader sent me the following question: Dear Dr. Kwasniewski, The question that all of Viganò’s essays and your own raises is: Why at this point should we remain in communion with the Catholic Church—you know, the one that most people (reasonably?) think is headed by Pope Francis and the bishops in communion with him?…
A good Orthodox Presbyterian friend of mine and I like to spar back and forth about the faith, to talk about raising our kids rightly in the eyes of God (even in Comrade Northam’s Virginia), and, more recently, to discuss the philosophy and writings of Nassim Nicholas Taleb. His four book “incerto” has been massively…
Much of the 1P5 audience, I suspect is quite wary of taking any of the proposed COVID vaccines. There are any number of pragmatic concerns, not least of which are the potential side effects of any vaccine that is rushed to market. There are also ethical concerns, however, based on methods used to develop the…
As I was reading the comments (I know, never do that) of my recent article in The American Conservative, It’s Not Your Father’s GOP, several commenters opined that a socially conservative political movement will never play with the Millennial and Gen Z crowd. In essence, their argument was that young people are, and always will…
We live in tumultuous times, and one has to be true to reality that the confusion, silence, and lack of leadership from within the Church, and most especially from the bishops and the academic circles, has only contributed to these times. We do not hesitate to criticize society for the crisis of fatherhood, but the…
In my study of history, I’ve noticed a few patterns. One of these is the cycle of impossible situations. It seems that about every ten generations—250 years, sometimes less—the Church is faced with one of these. It is some crisis which threatens to the destroy the whole Church and prove God false. At the time,…
The McCarrick report reveals a substantial degree of tolerance towards homosexual conduct by the clergy, which is punished only if minors are the persons abused. This report also ignores the fact that the McCarrick case is only the tip of the iceberg of a power system controlled by the gay lobby. Whether it is a…
