In light of the recent news from Detroit about a Catholic priest who discovered his baptism as an infant was invalid, Adam Rasmussen and DW Lafferty join me to discuss the Church’s approach to sacramental validity, scrupulosity, and confidence in...
It was perhaps foolish for my wife and me to attempt effective social-distancing with three children under six on a summer evening in a neighbor’s backyard. So we contracted COVID-19 on the Fourth of July. Our symptoms were relatively mild,...
“At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them—in this case the...
I was in prison and you visited me. — Matthew 25:36 In Victor Hugo’s masterpiece Les Miserables, the protagonist Jean Valjean is released on parole and given a yellow identification paper that said to all he met that he was...
In this week’s episode of Peter’s Field Hospital, Dan Amiri and Paul Fahey join me for a discussion about Divine Mercy, Saint Thomas, and Catholic Social Teaching. Next, I talk to DW Lafferty about Catholicism, Liberalism, and the Culture Wars....
What will our world look like when this experiment in liberalism comes to an end? I am not asking this hypothetically. The reality is that once-democratic societies around the globe are increasingly eschewing the principles of liberalism in order to...
The Gospel reading for the second Sunday of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday, tells the story of “Doubting Thomas.” I was grateful for the reminder that Saint Thomas was late to the game (so to speak) not just by a day...
Those who work in the world of finance and investments are very familiar with this disclaimer that appears on countless documents and presentations: “Past performance is not a guarantee of future results.” Investment professionals have an ethical obligation to ensure...
Last Friday’s extraordinary Urbi et Orbi blessing received a very positive reception. Most Catholics on social media, even many who are usually critical of Pope Francis, praised the ceremony as a much-needed beacon of hope in the midst of the...
Recently I’ve been struck by a verse in chapter seventeen of John’s Gospel. Jesus is with his apostles during the last supper, offering a long prayer, and at one point he says to his Heavenly Father, “Now this is eternal...
On the day he found out he had an aggressive form of leukemia, my father received the Sacrament of Reconciliation for the first time in 53 years. Many faith traditions place an emphasis on atoning for wrong done. In the...
Over the past six years, it’s become clear that Pope Francis generates his most provocative and unexpected headlines on airplanes. Sometimes this happens when he’s overheard while greeting reporters as they board the plane before a flight. More often, his...
Life is not simply a bare succession of events, but a history, a story waiting to be told through the choice of an interpretative lens that can select and gather the most relevant data. In and of itself, reality has...
You often find the charge among critics of Pope Francis that his apostolic exhortation, Amoris Laetitia, is opposed to Pope John Paul’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor. The differences between the two are exaggerated in order to set these two documents of...
“God has imprisoned all human beings in their own disobedience only to show mercy to them all.” — Rm 11:32 (NJB) When Pope Francis ended his Extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy in 2016, he issued an apostolic letter entitled Misericordia et...
“Respect must everywhere be shown for the feelings of all those who are attached to the Latin liturgical tradition, by a wide and generous application of the directives already issued” — Pope St. John Paul II Ecclesia Dei, #6.b Semina...
Pope Francis often makes a clear distinction between what he sees as a cold recitation of the Church’s doctrine and a vibrant encounter with the person of Jesus Christ. One of the clearest statements along these lines was in Amoris...
I’m too young to have known John Paul II. He died before I cared about Jesus, let alone the pope. Benedict was pope during my conversion at the end of high school and during college. But I was too deeply...
What is your opinion? If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them goes astray, will he not leave the ninety-nine in the hills and go in search of the stray? And if he finds it, amen, I...
John Calvin, the Reformation theologian in Geneva who lead the development of Protestant theology, was nothing if not a brilliant mind. Calvin’s contributions to the history of theology are almost always wrong, but they are so skillfully wrong that I...
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