Click here to read the first part of Paul Chu’s series on the Role of Religion in Contemporary Society. In 1896, the great American psychologist and philosopher William James gave a talk to a collection of philosophically-minded Ivy Leaguers, young men from Yale and Brown, entitled “The Will to Believe.” While many of his...
November is the month of All Souls — when we commemorate the souls of those who have died. This is why the faithful may receive a plenary indulgence on any day from November 1 through 8, if we devoutly visit a cemetery and pray for the souls in Purgatory. The indulgence can be...
I’d like to start this post with a short prayer written by Fr. Satish Joseph for the United States as a nation and for the election: Let us pray for a peaceful election day, for a peaceful reception of the news of victory or defeat, for a peaceful concession, and for a peaceful...
In the past week, it seems that celebrity exorcist Fr. Chad Ripperger and his supporters suddenly decided to mount an offensive in response to the article I wrote about his heterodox and dangerous views way back on September 18. I can only speculate about what prompted this delayed reaction, but I hope this...
We can enter heaven only thanks to the blood of the Lamb, thanks to the blood of Christ. Christ’s own blood has justified us, which has opened for us the gates of heaven. And if today we remember our brothers and sisters who have gone before us in life and are in Heaven,...
Much of everyday modern humanity takes the most basic value of religion to be its truth value, such that exposing a religion as false should be decisive. This is largely due to Christianity, and it has long been the position of most Christians and virtually every village atheist, even those of the global...
In Dilexit Nos, Pope Francis reinforces the Church’s conviction that the central axis of the cosmos is a heart at once human and divine. This wisdom, already present in two earlier encyclicals on the Sacred Heart (Pius XI’s Miserentissimus Redemptor and Pius XII’s Haurietis Aquas), implicitly recasts and recenters anthropology, philosophy, and a host of other disciplines...
The Pontifical Commission for the Protection of Minors has published its first annual report nearly a decade after Pope Francis established the Commission in 2014. In 2022, the pope directed the Commission to provide an annual assessment of safeguarding practices within the global Catholic Church, outlining areas of progress and key challenges that...
As the Synod on Synodality was drawing to a close, I found myself hearkening back to the Penitential Vigil conducted on the eve of this October’s meetings. I was struck, above all, by the apologies spoken on behalf of the Church by seven of the cardinals closest to Pope Francis. These apologies garnered...
This week I talked with my favorite online cleric, Deacon Steven Greydanus. As a Catholic who cares deeply about Catholic Social Teaching, the deacon’s writings since 2016 have helped make me feel like the Catholic world hasn’t completely gone mad and that I still had a place in the Church. In August he...
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 most exalted fulfillment of the Theology of the Body. The heart of the...
Over the past months, there were concerns that the Synod would decentralize Catholic teaching authority to episcopal conferences, with many fearing that such a move could fragment the Church. Behind these concerns was the influence of the German Synodal Way, whose calls for “doctrinal developments” on topics like sexuality and the ordination of women stirred apprehension about...
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