There is a great deal of grotesquery in the world and in the Church. The controversy over the Vatican Nativity Scene this year — a kind of “art” I have described as “weaponized ugliness” — has certainly driven the point home. (One might quibble with my use of “grotesque,” which implies something comical; that said,…
Image: The Immaculate Conception, by Giovanni Battista Tiepolo by Marianna Bartold “I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel.” (Gen. 3:15) “Amongst all the works of the Great Creator,” says Raymundus Jordanus (who, in…
“My first and last philosophy, that which I believe in with unbroken certainty, I learnt in the nursery. I generally learnt it from a nurse; that is, from the solemn and star-appointed priestess at once of democracy and tradition. The things I believed most then, the things I believe most now, are the things called…
Sunday, November 1st, marked the 70th anniversary of the Proclamation of the Dogma of Mary’s Assumption. On November 1, 1950, in fact, Pius XII, during a memorable Jubilee Year — the first in the era of the mass media — performed this solemn act in St. Peter’s Square, promulgating the Apostolic Constitution Munificentissimus Deus. In…
The month of November begins with the great Solemnity of All Saints. But in the traditional Roman calendar, All Saints is preceded shortly before by an even greater feast—that of Christ the King, the One who creates and sanctifies the citizens, ambassadors, and soldiers of His Kingdom. When Pope Pius XI instituted the feast of…
Epistle: Apocalypse 1:1-15 Gospel: Matthew 18:1-10 O God, Who assign according to a wondrous order the duties of Angels and men, mercifully grant that our life on earth be guarded by those who continually stand in Your presence and minister to You in heaven. …
It is common to hear some people propose that Our Lord was crucified as early as 30 A.D. and born as early as 4 B.C. They also claim He was not born in December and have proposed all sorts of other dates for His birth. Is there any truth to these claims? In the below…
At the Pentecost Octave, the Church celebrates an end and a beginning. It is the close of the Paschal cycle, which celebrates the close of the Old Covenant. This is the beginning of the Time after Pentecost, celebrating the birth of the Church under the New Covenant not of the letter, but of the Spirit…
When I was growing up, I distinctly recall hearing, more than once, presumably well-meaning teachers and preachers say something like the following: “The Church kind of forgot about the Holy Spirit for a long time, and with Vatican II, we remembered Him. This is now the Age of the Spirit.” Intriguingly, the age of the…
Integralism is a word that gets argued over a great deal among the American Catholic Twitterati. A lot of them are still having their old dispute over the limits of the Church with regard to the State, that never-ending problem of “who’s boss” between the American Constitution and the pope. But the word “integralism,” understood…
On Thursday, May 22 of this year, the faithful entered the season of “Little Advent,” the Lord’s own novena given to the apostles: Ascensiontide. Just as in winter Advent, the Church waits in joyful and fearful expectation for the Lord’s coming in the flesh, the Little Advent of Ascensiontide awaits a mysterious and unknown power…
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