I grew up with a deep affection for the pope. My childhood featured Pope John Paul II, and my siblings and I learned to love and appreciate him for being a bold defender of the Catholic faith. Indeed, the pope’s portrait was hung prominently in our home. His Koran-kissing, or further, his appointments of kissing…
I’m not even going to attempt to present this one as a straight news piece. The inescapable feeling one gets when looking at the story is that it’s a farce. After months under an Australian court’s gag order, the December conviction of Cardinal George Pell on decades-old sex abuse allegations has just been announced. The…
A new survey conducted by Fr. Donald Kloster of St. Mary’s Catholic Church in Norwalk, Connecticut, in cooperation with a statistician and Brian Williams of LiturgyGuy.com, has highlighted some interesting data from an underrepresented group of Catholics: those who regularly attend the traditional Latin Mass. The priest who initiated the survey has offered “both the…
If you played football in school, you might remember a little drill call “the gauntlet.” The team lines up in two rows facing each other, trying to smack the ball out of the hands of whoever runs between them. Awaiting at the opposite end is the “tackler.” As I was the smallest kid on the…
There is a clerical crisis, and everyone knows it. Some say the problem is in Catholicism’s doctrine of an exclusive priesthood, which inculcates a spirit of irredeemable “elitism.” This “sin of clericalism” is but a means to make Catholicism more Protestant and egalitarian with regard to the priesthood. Others say the problem is the chaste…
Image: El Tribuno An Argentine newspaper, El Tribuno, the first one to have reported on the Zanchetta case, published documents on Thursday [February 21] that demonstrate how bishops, the cardinal primate of Argentina, the nuncio, the Vatican, and the pope himself personally knew since 2015 about the case of a bishop who now faces a…
During the press conference for the Vatican Summit on Sex Abuse, early Monday, Cardinal Blase Cupich was asked by CNN’s Delia Gallagher to address whether “part of the problem is that priests, bishops and Cardinals are, themselves, engaged in illicit sexual behavior and therefore unwilling to denounce each other.” Cardinal Cupich, who was hand-chosen by…
“And unless those days had been shortened, no flesh should be saved: but for the sake of the elect those days shall be shortened.” —Matthew 24:22 Do you enjoy sins of the flesh? Are you greedy? Do you believe in the Catholic Faith but are lukewarm? Are you born into a non-Christian faith or part…
Blaise Pascal (1623–1662), in addition to being among the widely acknowledged geniuses of the human race, was one of the most eminent modern apologists for the Christian faith. In an era such as ours that denigrates both rationality, man’s distinctive trait, and belief in God, man’s highest dignity in this life, we have much to…
The sex abuse summit in Rome hasn’t even begun yet this week, and already things aren’t looking so good for any serious attempt to deal with this global crisis. Related Links: Presentation of the Meeting on “The protection of minors in the Church” 2019-02-18 (Vatican News) Cardinal Cupich: Vast majority of clergy abuse is homosexual,…
Tradition tells us that as Saint Thomas Aquinas was approaching the end of his life, Jesus Christ appeared to him in a vision and spoke to him from the cross, inquiring as to how he may reward the great Doctor for his contributions to the Church’s body of thought. “You have written well of me,…
