After years of ending the Christmas season and recognizing that I hadn’t listened to any carols, watched any classic Christmas movies, or otherwise engaged the holiday spirit at all (aside from ministry-related matters, obviously), I have approached Christmas a bit more intentionally this year. My go-to thus far has been perhaps the most...
There has been something inexplicable going on somewhere deep within me this Advent. I am finding it difficult to put it into words, but Christmas, its true meaning, and all its implications are overwhelming me. Of course, Christmas is the commemoration of Jesus’ incarnation into the world by which human redemption has been...
Therefore the shack of Bethlehem is a school, from which the divine Redeemer begins his teaching—not with words, but with deeds, teaching that the only means of rehabilitation is sacrifice in poverty and pain. The pompous theories, the clamorous rallies, the discussion of ardent questions, they are all of no use. To restore...
What does it mean to be a Catholic man? In recent years, many podcasts, YouTube videos, articles, and books have been devoted to the subject. The number is not surprising. As many argue, the Catholic Church in the West is in decline, Catholic communities have lost their rich cultural appeal, and many young...
I first heard of Gloria Purvis in the summer of 2020 after the murder of George Floyd. Around that time, Sam Rocha interviewed her for an excellent article in Church Life Journal titled, The Gift of Blackness to the Church. The following year, Gloria started her own podcast, The Gloria Purvis Podcast, with America Media....
Capitalism is an economic and political system in which most of a nation’s trades and industries (its capital goods, including the land and natural resources) are controlled (i.e., owned and managed) by private owners for profit, rather than by the government. But that initial definition is still too broad, for capitalism more specifically...
In late 2016, after an election year that left me feeling very disillusioned with American politics and alienated from the conservative pro-life circles I had been actively involved in, I began earnestly reading about Catholic Social Teaching. As a part of that, I started following people—theologians, business people, writers—who were critiquing American capitalism...
Our Holy Father Francis has written two exhortations, Evangelii Gaudium (2013) and Gaudete et Exultate (2018), that warn against two of the most pervasive and corrosive heresies in the 2,000 years of the Church: Neo-Pelagianism and Gnosticism. The pope, sensing the signs of the times (particularly relevant here in America), offers a pertinent...
One of the themes most emphasized by the documents of Vatican II was the importance of the People of God. Lumen gentium, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, has 41 references to the People of God. This is the subject of Chapter II, following Chapter I, which speaks of The Mystery of the...
In the world of improv comedy, there is a practice called “yes-and.” In an improv session, if something strange or shocking or difficult to understand is mooted, the next person in the session does not resist or attempt to backpedal or debunk what has just been said; instead, they say “yes, and,” followed...
A reflection on the Sunday readings for December 18, 2022, the Fourth Sunday of Advent. Next Sunday at this time, it will be Christmas. Today’s liturgy provides us with inspiration for our final week of Advent preparation. The stories and the characters in today’s Scripture readings are a great vantage point from which...
Today, December 17, is Pope Francis’s 86th birthday, and earlier today the Vatican announced that the 17th-century Jesuit Matteo Ricci has been declared “Venerable” by the Church. He is now two steps away from canonization (beatification is the next step). This declaration means that the “heroic virtue” of this famous missionary to China...
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