(Image: Battle of Lepanto) Monsignor Carlo Liberati, Archbishop Emeritus of Pompei o Beatissima Vergine Maria del Santissimo Rosario, has warned that Europe will become Muslim in ten years due to the weakness of Christianity. Archbishop Liberati was responsible for the Pontifical Shrine of the Virgin of the Rosary of Pompei, built by Blessed Bartolo Longo, the…
One thing astute observers should know by now is that precious few milestones in the Vatican’s campaign for constant innovation (“always forward!”) arrive unannounced. The process to allow communion for the divorced and remarried took over two years — from the consistory keynote of Cardinal Walter Kasper in February of 2014 to the promulgation of Amoris Laetitia in…
(Image: Pope John Paul II in attendance with leaders of various world religions at the ecumenical gathering in Assisi on October 27, 1986. Source: CNS/L’Osservatore Romano) Today, on a fateful anniversary — the thirtieth anniversary of the original Assisi meeting, at which 32 Christian and 11 non-Christian groups were present — we would like to share with our…
Islam’s self-stated purpose is to dominate and govern all men and their affairs through its religious teachings. Its followers are permitted to realize this goal by any means possible, for nothing is considered sinful so long as it is being done for the cause of Allah and the spread of Islam. Any society that has…
I’ll never forget my first day of graduate school. It was in the fall of 2007, and I had beeen accepted to Hartford Seminary’s Islamic Studies and Christian-Muslim Relations program. It was familiar territory for me, as I had attended Hartford Seminary for the past two years as an undergraduate to study the Arabic language…
The prayer for the conversion of the Jewish people in the traditional liturgy of Good Friday has been the object of criticism by representatives of the bishops’ conferences of Germany, and of England and Wales. Spokesmen for both these conferences have requested that this prayer be removed from the traditional liturgy and that it be…
The news coming in from around the world is grim. Photos and videos of beheadings, in all their grisly detail, flood our inboxes and social media feeds. Media personalities, celebrities, and world leaders have all denounced this barbaric behavior by saying that it does not represent true Islam. But are such assertions true, or simply…
The United States is, by far, the world’s largest producer of online pornography, accounting for nearly 25% of all such material. Rounding out the list of the top five porn-producing countries are the United Kingdom (5.5%), Germany (4.9%), Brazil (4.8%) and France (4%). Of the top 15, a dozen are western countries, the three outliers…
As the smoke clears in Brussels, my mind turns to the Europe that once was. I love that continent in a way that’s hard for me, as an American, to explain. When I studied history, I was always far more drawn to the Catholic drama of the kingdoms that grew up from the ashes of Rome than…
The East Coast of the United States is bracing for a possibly “historic snowstorm.” Earlier this month, we observed the 20th anniversary of another historic snowfall — the Blizzard of 1996. The fact that two decades has passed since that unique and memorable event makes me feel incredibly old, but it also brings me back. I remember distinctly…
Cologne Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in Northern Europe and the tallest Catholic church structure in Europe. If you’ve ever seen a Gothic cathedral, you know how impressive they can be. Notre Dame de Paris has nothing on Cologne. It took over six centuries to complete, and is Germany’s most visited landmark. It’s even…
