After a deeply controversial guilty verdict in a child sexual abuse case stemming from decades-old allegations, Cardinal George Pell has been sentenced to six years in prison on on five counts of abuse of minors. He will be eligible for parole in 3 years and 8 months. Pell has maintained his innocence throughout the trial,…
One of the big questions that has been routinely asked me by non-Catholic friends and family is, why become Catholic, especially now? It would seem that my conversion comes as a predicament due to its timing, given all the scandals. To most, it seems as if it’s quite obvious for everybody to avoid the Catholic…
RELATED LINKS: Pope Benedict’s Abdication Statement (Vatican Website) Interview With Pope Emeritus About Validity of His Resignation (1P5, La Stampa) Pope Emeritus Interview With Peter Seewald on Question of Forced Resignation (1P5, National Catholic Register) Pope Emeritus Letters to Cardinal Walter Brandmüller (1P5, Bild) On Questions of a Limitations of a Pope’s Powers/Power to Abrogate Canon…
Author Martin Mosebach, who is not a fan of interrupting sacrosanct actions, suggests in The Heresy of Formlessness that the priest’s sermon metaphorically rends the liturgical garment in two. Mass begins with what is sacred, gets abruptly disconnected by human speech from the sermon, then resumes with the sacred mysteries. As Mosebach explains, “when the…
Every Ash Wednesday, I feel as though I were attending a funeral Mass. You would think someone had died — and this joyless expression lingers on for many of us until Easter. For years, I held that same expression — that is, until I read The Rule of St. Benedict. Many people have an aversion…
As being the continuation of “true Israel,” the Catholic Church was also structured in a hierarchal fashion. This structure was practical for the purpose of maintaining basic order in worship, as Israel had been practicing from the beginning. This structure was particular in that Jesus gave His apostles (especially the Twelve) similar authority as He…
I don’t know about all of you, but I am so unbelievably sick and tired of being treated as though we’re all a bunch of complete idiots. And when I see good bishops and priests playing games of mental Twister to try to reconcile deeply unorthodox statements from the pope just because he’s the pope,…
Ask a believing Jew, and he will tell you that Jesus Christ is not the fulfillment of the Hebrew Scriptures. Moreover, he will provide you with the proper contexts and meanings of the passages on which the “misunderstanding” supposedly turns. The fact that there are interpretations of the Hebrew Scriptures that do not support the…
March 7 is the dies natalis, the heavenly birthday — and therefore the traditional liturgical commemoration — of St. Thomas Aquinas, the Angelic Doctor, a Dominican friar who combined childlike innocence, guileless humility, and fervent prayer with one of the most towering intellects the human race has ever seen. He has been put forward by…
What kind of people must we be, if God is permitting this man to destroy the Catholicity of the Church, to the degree to which it is possible to destroy the Church? The Gates of Hell shall not prevail against the Church, but that doesn’t mean that the enemy cannot inflict overwhelming damage in his…
Last week, it was announced by the Australian court system that Cardinal George Pell had been convicted in December of child sex abuse. The media had been prevented from reporting on the verdict because there was a hope of moving forward with yet another trial against the cardinal. That trial against Pell fell apart. Another,…
