Death, Memory, and Oblivion Toward the midpoint of his 1,000-page Aesthetics, Dietrich von Hildebrand describes the death of culture in violent terms: [U]ntil the beginning of the nineteenth century and the triumph of the machine, culture had not yet been strangled by civilization. The expression of the spirit, the gift of giving form … penetrated…
Epistle: 1 Peter 3:8–15 Gospel: Matthew 5:20–24 O God, Who hast prepared for them that love Thee good things unseen: pour into our hearts such love towards Thee, that, loving Thee in all and above all, we may obtain Thy promises, which exceed all that we can desire. —From the Collect for the Fifth Sunday…
The church was crowded with worshipers that Holy Thursday evening. James was late and had to look hard for a seat. There’s always a seat in the front, he said to himself and pushed forward. This was a Catholic church, after all, and people preferred to sit at the back. He found a spot in…
Franciscan Catechism: Progressives’ Fake News on the Saint from Assisi Guido Vignelli Chorabooks 164 pages $15.61 paperback, $7.80 e-book If the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the name “Francis” is perhaps not quite the same as it used to be, perhaps a quick read of Guido Vignelli’s Franciscan Catechism: Progressives’ Fake…
Something ancient — paganism — is “struggling to be born” again. It’s slouching toward birth, like Yeats’s “rough beast,” laboring to arrive for its hour. It’s emerging amid the rise of what exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger ominously describes as the “sixth generation.”[i] According to Fr. Ripperger, specific “generational spirits” — demons — afflict different generations.…
After the revelations of Theodore McCarrick and the corroboration of the Viganò testimony, all reasonable men can agree that an infiltration exists within the hierarchy of the Catholic Church. Part of the solution to this grave problem is to investigate the historical roots of the crisis. To that end, Taylor Marshall’s book Infiltration argues the…
Epistle: Romans 8:18-23 Gospel: Luke 5:1-11 Grant us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, that both the course of this world may be peacefully ordered for us by Thy governance, and that Thy Church may rejoice in quiet devotion. —From the Collect for the Fourth Sunday after Pentecost Although this Sunday is the Fourth Sunday after…
Note: Skip to the On the Contrary if you are not familiar with a Thomistic article. Objection 1: It seems that Patriotism is not a virtue. For our Lord said, My Kingdom is not of this world (Jn. xviii. 36) and, further, we are strangers and pilgrims (I Pt. ii. 11) whose citizenship is in heaven…
“Hi, my name is Paul, and I’m an ex-Protestant.” Telling my conversion story can sometimes feel as though I were attending some sort of “Church Anonymous” meeting. God and the Bible and prayer have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Growing up, we went to services every week…
In a recent interview with America magazine, Archbishop Rino Fisichella praised the “dynamic nature” of sacred Tradition. Such Tradition, he maintained, is “first and foremost living.” We must not view Tradition as hidebound, the archbishop implied, because denying the “dynamic nature of tradition is tantamount to denying the contemporaneity of the Christian faith.” Here I…
In a homily delivered at Chartres on Pentecost Monday in 2015, His Excellency Bishop Athanasius Schneider offered to the pilgrims gathered there both an analysis of the most pressing challenge facing the Church today as well a strategy for meeting and, with the grace of God, mastering that challenge: “In our time, the natural family…
