I’m often asked about the state of Catholicism in Japan and about being a Catholic expat in Japan in particular. I thought this might be a good time to write about it, given that Japan might be on a lot of Catholics’ minds with Pope Francis having just wrapped up the first papal visit to…
In the United States, the annual Thanksgiving day, celebrated on the fourth Thursday in November to thank God for the fields’ good harvest, is one of the most popular national holidays since 1620, when the “Pilgrim Fathers” landed at Plymouth Rock . As you reflect on this day, “in which it is a must to…
Positive trajectories and luminous developments are a rare commodity in our current ecclesial environment, despite this being part and parcel of the mission of the Church. Therefore, it was with a surprised enthusiasm that I greeted the news of the forthcoming broadcast of a TLM accompanied by Frank La Rocca’s Mass of the Americas on…
Do they return to idols? Do they recover, taking up the spaces left free by the Church of Christ, characteristic aspects of the pagan world? A few days after the Amazon Synod, the Pachamama Synod — from the fetish depicting “Mother Earth,” which between 6 and 27 October was the center of ceremonies not far…
Catholic theologians throughout the life of the Church have elucidated, analyzed, and protected the doctrine of Christ’s incarnation. But few have captured this mystery in so arresting, direct, and radiant a manner as the sacred arts. In her literature, hymnography, paintings, and gardens, the art of the Catholic Church guards and illuminates the complex doctrine…
“In this month, which the Holy Church consecrates to the dead, we urge you to gather in the Christian suffrage, so that those who, having obtained forgiveness from their sins, had not yet deserved the remission of their punishment, may soon rise from Purgatory to Paradise, welcomed by the Angels, by the Saints, by the…
The news that in these days comes to us around the statuettes of the Pachamama, the mother goddess worshiped in the Inca religion, thrown into the Tiber from Ponte Sant’Angelo, at the foot of the castle dominated by St. Michael, makes us think of the fourth act of Nabucco, the opera by Giuseppe Verdi who…
One hundred seventy years ago, on October 17, 1849, the Polish French composer and pianist who renewed the sound of the Romantic piano died: Frederic Chopin (1810–1849). His superhuman, sad, and passionate art is well summarized in the following words, beautiful and moving, which the Venerable Pope Pius XII addressed to a large group of…
The news of the supreme glorification, on October 13, of Saint John Henry Newman (1801–1890) reawakens interest in this British cardinal, theologian and apologist. Beatified by Benedict XVI on September 19, 2010 in Great Britain, he was born in London to an Anglican family. For 20 years, he was minister of the Anglican Communion at…
“Dad, guess what!” My eight-year-old son Joseph came home from a recent weekend stay with his grandparents. It was his first weekend spent away from his parents, and evidently, he had some exciting news. “Oh boy,” I thought, “what crazy codswallop did my dad teach him now?” “They sang ‘Companions on the Journey‘ at Grandpa’s…
Although active participation may have dissipated as a liturgical rallying call, it remains an unusually revealing and concise way to track how the Church has evolved over recent decades. This was a new concept in regards to liturgy, and its importance is paramount, as it is a frequently cited justification for the 20th-century liturgical reforms.…
