A reflection on the Sunday readings for November 8, 2020 These are not the easiest days for us, both as a nation and as a world. We find ourselves caught up in the mayhem and turmoil of a political contest different from any we have experienced in recent times, while at the same time...
Last week, we celebrated the Autumn Triduum—Halloween, All Soul’s Day, and All Saints’ Day. These three days welcome us to November, a month that is dedicated to eschatology and the contemplation of the last things. Many of us who are Catholic have thought about eschatology, and have taken part in discussions about it....
“But not every distribution among human beings of property and wealth is of a character to attain either completely or to a satisfactory degree of perfection the end which God intends. Therefore, the riches that economic-social developments constantly increase ought to be so distributed among individual persons and classes that the common advantage...
“The Sillon , therefore, subjects its religion to a political party. We do not have to demonstrate here that the advent of universal Democracy is of no concern to the action of the Church in the world; we have already recalled that the Church has always left to the nations the care of...
Our world is in need of peace. All around the globe, and especially in the United States, we see the rotten fruits of a society that is not at peace. There is violence in the streets, rage on social media, and discord in our homes. Deep social divisions make it nearly impossible to...
Where Peter Is · Austen Ivereigh On The World’s Spiritual Director In part two of our interview with Austen Ivereigh, we discuss the new cardinals recently picked by Pope Francis, including Wilton Gregory, the Archbishop of Washington. I asked Austen for some insights into how Francis selects cardinals, including what he’s looking for,...
We, as Catholics, are called to unity. This was Christ’s prayer on the eve of his death, that we may all be one (Jn 17:21), as he and the Father are one. Sadly, we’ve been doing a lousy job of answering this call, especially in the last few years. I hope that once...
Sometime after the 2012 US election, I made a commitment that has continued to inform my conscience and my approach to politics and society ever since: I chose to step away. I was something of a political news junkie for much of my young adult life. I stayed up on election night in...
Death is inevitable. For the bulk of human history, this has been a universally acknowledged and widely emphasized truism. Victorious Roman generals, as they paraded through the city in triumph, would be accompanied by someone whose job it was to repeatedly whisper to them, “remember that you will die.” The medieval Japanese Tale...
UPDATE Lost in the election day shuffle was the fact that the official English version (well, mostly English) of the Vatican’s response to the comments made by Pope Francis in the Francesco documentary has been published. Rocco Palmo of Whispers in the Loggia tweeted images of the official document sent by US papal nuncio Archbishop Christophe...
A reflection on the Sunday readings for November 1, 2020 All Saints’ Day has a very long and interesting history. While the exact origin of this feast is unclear, historians believe that it began organically at the end of the Christian persecution in the Roman Empire, around the year 312. Not only did the...
Members of the pro-life movement often describe policies that work to undermine the recognition of human dignity and to devalue human life as promoting the “culture of death.” This term was made popular by Pope St. John Paul II in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae, where he used it to describe cultures that malform...
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