“He’ll be a bishop someday.” That was the prediction in the parish I attended fifteen years ago. Our pastor was a nice man – likable and affable. No one had anything negative to say about him. The best word I can use to describe him is “safe.” He didn’t court controversy and did his job…
In a recent online exchange, someone accused me of not being a “real traditionalist.” I suppose that the jibe was supposed to chafe, but it landed pretty far afield. Not only is this not the first time such an accusation (if one could even call it that) has been leveled against me, but it’s an…
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…
I am a guy who grew up on comic books and sci-fi. They have always played a role in my imaginative thinking, and I’ve enjoyed this recent span of movies that have brought so much of that part of my childhood to life. (I know a number of you are very anti-pop culture, but there’s…
When I was invited to write this piece for OnePeterFive, Steve Skojec wanted to know why I was becoming Catholic now. After all, I was obviously a conservative. An outspoken counter-jihad activist. A vehement defender of the existence of only two sexes. Hardly the sort of person with a high tolerance for the progressivism and…
Editor’s Note: An earlier version of this article was first published at OnePeterFive in October 2015 under the pen name “Benedict Constable.” Due to some controversy (the nature of which need not be gone into here), the article was taken down, but not before it had reached a large number of readers and received praise…
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.…
Ever since I was a child, I wanted to become a priest. My mother, a devout Catholic, was the one who taught me about the faith, the sacraments, and the Church. She brought me to daily Mass since I was an infant, and my earliest memories are of being held in her arms as she…
Yesterday, we reprinted an essay by Peter Mitchell at The American Conservative about his experiences with the seminary culture in Lincoln, Nebraska under vocations director Msgr. Leonard Kalin. Mitchell, a heterosexual priest who accepted laicization after his own admitted failures in keeping his vow of celibacy, spoke of an environment of “totally inadequate and abusive formation” for the…
Just as the latest round of homosexual network and sex abuse allegations in the Church are reaching a fever pitch, Pope Francis – who has been eerily quiet of late – dropped a nuclear theological bomb into our midst. From Crux: According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church, the death penalty now is no longer…
In light of today’s news that the pope has “changed the Catechism of the Catholic Church about the death penalty, saying it can never be sanctioned,” we are reprinting this as a reference point for concerned Catholics. –SS, 8/2/2018 When the first version of this column was originally published in March 2015, it was occasioned…
