A Catholic teaching sister once took a young boy to task who, when asked why a certain verb form should be used instead of another, responded, “Because the other word doesn’t sound right.” “No, no, no!” said Sr. Ruth, “you cannot go by what sounds right because you might be used to hearing the wrong…
The American Catholic is comfortable. This is a person who has remained in the Church despite all of the reasons others have found for leaving; a person who feels good inside after Mass; a person who is glad that the Church has caught up with the times. Staying enrolled in the parish, raising your hands…
We see in the Latin liturgical tradition an interesting thing: with the major feast on June 29 as well as the minor feasts, both apostles are always commemorated [1]. If the feast is chiefly of the Prince of the Apostles, then St. Paul is also commemorated with an additional collect and vice versa [2]. This liturgical…
As I write this piece, I am wearing around my neck my St. Francis Xavier medal. I wear it almost always. At home, at work, at Mass, even while working out at the gym or playing hockey, it is always there near my heart, literally. While I admire and venerate all the saints, Francis is…
In his most recent letter about his visit with Archbishop Vigano, Inside the Vatican‘s Robert Moynihan relates something Vigano told him that caught my attention: And yet, now, as the October Amazon Synod draws near, and Catholic theologians increasingly find its working document a text based not on Christo-centric Christian revelation, but on observation of…
The prophet Ezekiel gives us the “allegory of the cedar,” which teaches us personal and political lessons. In that prophecy, Egypt is compared to a cedar tree grown tall and beautiful. As it grew, however, it became arrogant — “its heart was proud of its height” (31:10) — so the Lord rejected it and let…
“Christ was crucified on earth and the Church is crucified in time, and the Church is crucified by all of us, by her members most particularly because She is a Church of sinners.” —Flannery O’Connor. There is quite a lot of talk these days about heresy and scandal in the hierarchy of the Church, of…
[1] Five Ecumenical Councils approved a letter of Patriarch St. Cyril of Alexandria that taught the Dogma of the Filioque! Cardinal St. Robert Bellarmine gives a manifest proof establishing the doctrine from the authority of five ecumenical councils: Omitting these things, then, let us bring forward the Councils that testify the Holy Spirit proceeds from…
Earlier today, I was engaged in a discussion on Facebook in which, after saying something about the “Novus Ordo Paradigm,” someone asked me, rather indignantly, what that phrase means. I did my best to explain it, and I’d like to expand on it here in greater depth. I want to say at the outset of…
Epistle: Romans 6:19-23 Gospel: Matthew 7:15-21 O God, whose providence faileth not in its designs, we humbly entreat Thee: to put away from us all hurtful things, and to give us all things which be profitable for us. – From the Collect for the Seventh Sunday after Pentecost Sunday’s readings revolve around the imagery of…
Imagine you are arriving early for a Friday-night youth event at a nearby Catholic parish. The youth minister is busy strumming the three chords of his newly created worship song, so you strike up a conversation with the longtime parish youth coordinator, Joan, a former nun who has never had a job, nor a life,…
