A big mistake that some Catholics make is to think of the liturgy as clergy-centered. Honestly, it’s difficult to blame them—priests really do play a great role in liturgical celebrations. For example, without a priest, it is impossible to have...
The world of American conservatism (and thus also a large segment of the world of American Catholicism) is embroiled in yet another moral panic: this time regarding what is described as Critical Race Theory. What most people mean when they...
“In order to communicate the message entrusted to her by Christ, the Church needs art. Art must make perceptible, as far as possible attractive, the world of the spirit, of the indivisible, of God. It must therefore translate into meaningful...
Giving priority to space means madly attempting to keep everything together in the present, trying to possess all the spaces of power and of self-assertion; it is to crystallize processes and presume to hold them back. Giving priority to time...
“And make no mistake, the residential schools were first and foremost Christian.” In this, Declan Leary, the author of a particularly discourse-driving article in the American Conservative, got it right. The Canadian residential schools run by the Catholic Church—which killed...
A few days ago Religion News Service (RNS) ran an article by Jack Jenkins on Douglas Lucia, the Bishop of Syracuse, New York. Lucia has denounced something called the “doctrine of discovery,” and has called on the US bishops to...
As a parish catechist, I am extremely indebted to Bishop Robert Barron. For years, not a week has gone by when I have not used several resources from his Word on Fire apostolate. Recently, in addition to his catechetical and...
The Benedictine Monastery and the Franciscan Field Hospital Catholics aren’t Countercultural As Catholics, we’re called to resist the “culture of death” and the “throw-away culture.” Does this mean we are countercultural? Are we being called to oppose a culture, or...
Pope Francis surely sends many personal letters that don’t land in the headlines, but his remarkably warm and encouraging letter, sent in response to a note from Father James Martin about his nephew’s confirmation, certainly did. After Francis expressed his...
For much of my life, I’ve dealt with a persistent unease about the sex into which I was born. This wasn’t something I asked for, although it also hasn’t made me as miserable as some might assume. My unease has...
Two Intertwined Narratives Rod Dreher begins his book The Benedict Option by observing that the “culture war” is over and that the conservatives have lost it. If the war is indeed over, many of the warriors don’t seem to have...
Like many Catholics who live in the Washington, DC area, I have attended the annual March for Life many times over the years. For those who haven’t been, it’s a massive annual pro-life rally held every year on January 22,...
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