Image: Baptism illumination, circa 13th century. Although few things can match the natural beauty of a fall day in the upper Midwest, I still vividly recall my wife and myself making our way from the cool outside air into the hushed baptistry of our local cathedral, to witness the striking splendor of the Sacrament of…
Image: Yet another downward spiral at the Vatican. Yesterday, when we hit publish on the story about five alleged questions the pope asked Cardinal Müller before informing him his mandate as prefect of the CDF would not be renewed, I knew we were opening the door to backlash, outrage, and accusations. This is only the second…
UPDATE: When this story was first issued, we had not yet received any response from Cardinal Müller, his secretary, or Greg Burke, Director of the Vatican Press office. Burke has since responded to say that the reconstruction of the events of the Müller meeting as described below is “totally false”. The personal secretary of Cardinal Müller has…
It is a cool, dark Montana night in early May as we head west from Bozeman toward the Idaho border. Sheets of rain fall intermittently through our drive as we pull our recently acquired utility trailer up and over the passes that divide East from West, Atlantic from Pacific, Montana from Idaho. We are transporting…
My article – regarding the dilemma created for Catholic lawyers related to whether or not the local ordinary’s permission is required before seeking a civil divorce – has received a reply from the internet’s pre-eminent canon lawyer, Edward Peters. Since I am not a canon lawyer, I welcome any correction from a competent authority (and blogmeister Dr.…
Image credit: Dr. Michael Hesemann As we reported earlier this week, Cardinal Joachim Meisner, one of the four dubia cardinals, passed away on 5 July. The German cardinal fell peacefully asleep while praying his breviary in preparation for offering the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the morning. In the wake of the news of Cardinal Meisner’s death, Dr.…
We live in an age of demagoguery, where would-be petty tyrants grasp at power from behind the stalking horses of “oppressed” or “powerless” surrogates. We must “help the kids” or “save the planet” or do something-or-other for the peripheral groups of people who live at the margins of society. (Or is that the marginalized groups…
By Man Shall His Blood Be Shed: A Catholic Defense of Capital Punishment Edward Feser & Joseph Bessette Ignatius Press, 2017 500 pages $21.20 Paperback Sometime in the mid-1990s in Colombia, Luis Alfredo Garavito Cubillos lured a 6-year-old boy into an isolated spot and sodomized and murdered him. There were bite marks and other evidence…
Editor’s Note: The following is adapted from the recently-published book The Old Evangelization by 1P5 author Eric Sammons, published by Catholic Answers Press. One day, back when I was a diocesan director of evangelization, I was meeting with a pastor and some of his staff about launching evangelization efforts in their parish. The pastor had a sincere…
Image: Statue of Saint Germaine Cousin by Alexandre Falguière – by Wikimedia Commons Germaine Cousin was a 16th-century shepherdess who lived from 1579 to 1601. Born with a lame right hand and the disease scrofula (a non-tuberculous infection of the lymph nodes of the neck), she projected quite an unsightly appearance. The only child of…
In the wake of the sudden and sad death of Cardinal Joachim Meisner, Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, has just revealed in a new 5 July interview that he spoke with Cardinal Meisner the night before he died. As the Passauer Neue Presse reports: Müller had…
