I really like some of Elton John’s music. I remember listening to his album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road when I was about eight years old. I remember being amazed at the fact that it was almost as good as the Beatles albums my older siblings played. Even though I have never been fond of the…
In these times of “politically correct” religious and moral bewilderment, in which Christmas carols are purged of Christian references, when they are not replaced with other songs, times in which Nativity scenes are rejected in the name of a misunderstood religious neutrality and a misrepresented secularity, the call, found in the pope’s recent apostolic letter…
Fr. Dwight Longenecker is a fine writer. No one expresses a certain point of view better than he does. I’m not sure how to characterize it exactly; it might be described as a via-media-at-all-costs, the straight road that veers not off to left or right. He is determined to place himself between the extremes of…
Mass Exodus: Catholic Disaffiliation in Britain and America since Vatican II Stephen Bullivant Oxford University Press 336 pages $32.95 hardback, $24.99 e-book If you want to start a heated debate in Catholic circles, just state an opinion about the Second Vatican Council’s impact on attrition rates in the modern Church. While many implicate Vatican II…
“Tota pulchra es, Maria” is the cry of the Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary — a cry that rises towards the All Beautiful One, in which the splendor of God’s glory shines. They are words of ancient Franciscan origin, which are found even today in the antiphons sung, or read,…
Already the first great jewel threaded onto the strands of the new liturgical year is upon us: the glorious Feast of the Immaculate Conception. This year, December 8 falls on a Sunday. Yet this feast is so important that it supersedes the Mass of the Second Sunday of Advent in the traditional calendar. Dom Prosper…
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…
