I recall many months ago, in happier times, a television commercial of a bride getting married in the middle of a forest. Her mother, seemingly confined to a nursing home, was unable to attend. Now it is evidently not right that a girl should forgo a dream wedding in a forest just to have her…
My Open Letter of Application for Catholic College Chancellorship: To the powers-that-be on campus: Good morning! I am writing to you to humbly request consideration to be hired as your new Chancellor (or whatever you call the “top job” on campus) at your officially-but-not-actually Catholic institution of higher learning. My formal qualifications for such a…
“In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will direct your path.” Proverbs 3:6 I’m a walker. I walk all over the place. As a teen, I walked almost two miles to high school every morning. I took up “city hiking” in my twenties, long before it became “urban hiking.” These days, I still walk and…
As the week — and the month — wind to a close, I wanted to thank you all once again for your readership of 1P5. We know that you have more options than ever for good Catholic news and commentary, and we’re happy that you choose to be here. It’s a weird time we’re living…
You’ll see it in the headlines from time to time. It’s usually some variant of “which language did Jesus speak?” or “is ISIS exterminating the language of Jesus?” Scholars – well educated scholars – will make reference to the destruction of Jesus’ native language in modern Near Eastern communities or perhaps examine the relevance of…
It was on this day, 1590 years ago, that before the age of seventy six, in Hippo, today’s Bona in Algeria, a passionate seeker of truth, the most illustrious of the Fathers of the Western Church went to his eternal reward: St. Augustine, Bishop and Doctor of the Church (354-430). African by origin (he was…
An Artistic Conflict Every one that is of the truth, heareth my voice. Pilate saith to him: What is truth? Excerpt, John 18:37-38, Douay-Rheims I propose that this one brief exchange summarizes the conflicted state of the arts in our post-modern, 20th and 21st century experience. For there is sacred art, and there is secular or popular art, and…
What does it mean for someone to “know that the Church is necessary for salvation”? The documents of the Church always say: If someone knows this but does not act upon it, he cannot be saved. Are there really such people?
There is nothing so great as the Eucharist. If God had something more precious, He would have given it to us. – Saint Jean-Marie Vianney The first time I walked through the doors of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, I was overcome. This greatest treasure of Christian architecture impressed upon me an incredible and awe-inspiring feeling of smallness. As…
Dear Fellow Catholic, I know the past few months – really, the past few years – have been pretty tough. With the situation at your local parish changing during the pandemic, perhaps you’ve been livestreaming a Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) on television out of curiosity, or maybe you’ve even headed down to the closest TLM…
Today, August 25, 2020, marks the 750th anniversary of the death in Tunis of a man who “summarizes the entire Middle Ages”, who “was a legislator, a hero and a saint”, who embodied “power united with holiness, and it is just the latter that goes to the foreground for him” (F.R. Chateaubriand, Études historiques, in…
