The fallout from Pope Francis’ comments on Zika and contraception continue. I’ve already shared my thoughts on the need for public correction by our bishops of the error (that contraception is justified to prevent birth defects caused by viral transmission) propagated by Francis. Privately, I’ve begun to hear from moral theologians and Catholic medical professionals who…
Part 4 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 4: The Wisdom of the Church and Her Understanding of Man In this final article, I will speak of the great wisdom of the Church’s understanding of the need for purification, a need that extends not only to the life to come,…
In many and various ways God spoke of old to our fathers by the prophets; but in these last days He has spoken to us by a Son, whom He appointed the heir of all things, through whom also He created the ages. So begins the Letter to the Hebrews. Compared to the knowledge of…
Part 3 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 3: Purgatory—The Attractive Impulse of His Burning Love Contemplating the prospects of heaven and hell helps us to see the purpose, indeed the necessity, of a state of purgatory, where a soul dying in God’s favor is made ready to behold the…
Part 2 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 2: Throwing Yourself Away, or Yielding Yourself to God In the Nicomachean Ethics, Aristotle discusses how each man holds a kind of “inner conversation” with himself, reflecting on what he has already done and thinking about what he will do in days…
Part 1 of a 4-part series: Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV Part 1: Hell is Real, and You Could Go There If one were to sample the doctrine of today’s sermons and books, one would think that every human being who has ever been and ever will be follows the high road to heaven. No…
Bishop Athanasius Schneider, today’s “lone voice crying out in the wilderness” among our bishops — our Athanasius contra mundum –has laid out his thoughts on the recently-closed Synod in an exclusive analysis provided to Rorate Caeli. We offer them our sincere thanks for allowing us, and others, to reproduce it full, so that the truth may be…
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat is a faithful Catholic who often writes about the Church. His latest column regarding the controversial Synod on the Family in Rome, “The Plot to Change Catholicism,” was strongly criticized in a letter to the editor by more than 50 signers, many of them theologians from Catholic colleges and universities.…
Editor’s note: the following is taken from the introduction to the upcoming book from Emmaus Road Publishing, From the Beginning: The Mission and Vocation of the Family in the Contemporary World. The introduction was written by Dr. Michael Sirilla, professor of theology at Franciscan University of Steubenville, and is reproduced by him here. The book received an initial limited print…
One of the best things about being a one-man show behind the scenes of a website is that everything flows through you; the articles, the design, the videos, the editorial tone and policy – it offers a fine degree of control in service of your vision as content producer. One of the worst things about being…
As Catholics we know that we have received life from God Who reveals Himself to our minds and hearts in two ways: by nature, or in the finality (referred to in theology as “the Wisdom of God”) inscribed in the very nature of things. This is called the Natural Law and includes in part what…
