In this truly beautiful encyclical, Pope Francis offers the theology specific to the “revolution of tenderness” for which he has so often and so insistently called. In one sense, I see contemplation of the Sacred Heart of Jesus as the...
I have read the pope’s new encyclical, Dilexit Nos, twice today and I have avoided most of the commentary and public reactions to the document. I posted my thoughts on X earlier this afternoon, so if you saw what I...
Earlier this month, at the site of St. Peter’s martyrdom in Rome, participants in the second session of the synodal assembly joined Pope Francis to pray for Christian unity, offering an ecumenical prayer asking to “remove divisions between Christians so...
Radical materialism and arrant superstition alike are common enough in this world – so much so, in fact, that they may often be found side by side in the selfsame person. Yet some who consider themselves orthodox believers seem to...
Story-telling is a thing right now, but it wasn’t when I sent a one-minute pitch to The Moth in 2013. I had been listening to the Moth on public radio stations for years: “True stories, told live, no notes.” And...
On October 8, 2024, Bishop Bernard Tissier de Mallerais died, at the age of 79. He was one of the four bishops consecrated illicitly and against the express will of Pope St. John Paul II by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre and...
I’m an amateur artist. I love color, and I’ve always appreciated talented artists and their work. Sadly, I’m not a talented artist myself, nor have I been formally trained. The reason I paint is that my spiritual director, in the...
“If your hand causes you to sin, cut it off. If your foot causes you to sin, cut it off, and if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out.” The hand, the foot, and the eye: three things...
A Reflection on Today’s Readings Recently, I was playing a form of Bible roulette. If you have not heard the term before, it is a reference to when someone points to a random verse in the Bible and tries to...
About a year and a half ago, I wrote an article on the Samaritan woman of the Gospels in connection with the Holy Father’s 2021 opening of the ordinary ministry of acolyte and lector to women of good character. Taken alongside his establishment of...
When the world is in greatest confusion, visionaries become oracles. Panic, like every other passion, blinds the intelligence of man, and he is glad to take refuge from everything that bewilders him by giving it a ‘supernatural’ interpretation. -Fr. Marie...
I have never done a DNA test and I probably never will, but I don’t need one to know that I am an ethnical hodge-podge. On one side, I am descended from Italians from the south of Italy along the...
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