If you’re a Catholic and you have a pulse, you feel it: we’ve entered into a moment in Church history that is wholly unique. Some will seek historical parallels in this or that heresy, this or that crisis, and mostly fail to do so. In large part, they fail because they’re wrong, but also because…
“Gaslighting,” writes Dr. Stephanie Sarkis at Psychology Today, “is a tactic in which a person or entity, in order to gain more power, makes a victim question their [sic] reality. It works much better than you may think. Anyone is susceptible to gaslighting, and it is a common technique of abusers, dictators, narcissists, and cult leaders.” For…
Today, Pope Francis had an audience with a globally known figure. It was not Cardinal Burke, one of the four authors of the dubia, who submitted their concerns about the pope’s post-synodal apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia exactly two years ago today. (Two of those authors, Cardinal Joachim Meisner and Cardinal Carlo Caffarra, did not live to see…
While the eyes of most of the faithful who follow Church news remain fixated on the near-constant drumbeat of new information about Clerical Abuse Scandal 2.0, another papal document has dropped, and in it, another likely time bomb. This morning, Pope Francis issued the Apostolic Constitution Epicopalis Communio (EC) – “Episcopal Communion” – which aims to “reform” the synodal…
In the summer of 1997, just before I started college, I moved out to live with the family of one of my best friends from high school in northern Idaho. While there, I worked for the family business, which typically involved installing and replacing pumps in residential water wells in homes spread across hundreds of…
On day two of the Lumen Fidei Conference on the Family in Ireland last week, I was able to sit down with a number of the speakers presenting, for my new show on Buzz Patterson’s “Power & Patriots,” Conversations in Discomfiture. The show itself targets a secular (albeit conservative) audience. The premise? Interviews, roundtables, and investigations…
It’s an act of hubris so stunning, I can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like it. Confronted on the plane back from Ireland by a reporter from CBS News who wanted a simple true-or-false answer about whether the pope could confirm allegations that former apostolic nuncio to the United States Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò had…
In the centuries-old Missal of the Roman Rite, at the beginning of each and every Mass, the priest places himself before the judgment of God, soliciting divine judgment and making reparation for sin before approaching the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice. In English, this prayer, taken from Psalm 42, begins: “Judge me, O God,…
“And he shall speak words against the High One, and shall crush the saints of the most High: and he shall think himself able to change times and laws, and they shall be delivered into his hand until a time, and times, and half a time.” –Daniel 7:25 I wrote before, years ago, that I believe…
Today, someone sent me the latest column at First Things by American Catholic writer and papal biographer George Weigel, entitled “WYD-1993: The Turning Point.” I am not, in general, a fan of Weigel’s work, which I find by turns dull and frustrating – often both. This column is no exception, and yet it serves as…
The debate over the pope’s recently announced changes to the Catechism on the subject of capital punishment are being hotly debated in every corner of the Catholic world. Some are saying this change is a mere “development of doctrine.” Some think it’s not a change in doctrine at all, but an adjustment to practical application.…
Please help us to meet our expenses by donating today!
