Regular Contributions
Port and Cookies
I have long wanted to compile a collection of anecdotes by graduates of Catholic colleges and universities from (roughly) 1967-2000 as to how they survived the reigning agnostic materialism on campus. To what underground bunkers did they flee? Between which dusty old stacks in the university library did they repair? To which neighborhood bar–away from the…
Confusions about Social Justice
The phrase “social justice” is relatively new, appearing first with frequency in the writing of Pius XI, most notably in Quadragesimo Anno (1931). Despite its more frequent use among contemporary Catholics, social justice is now widely confused with its kindred virtues, “commutative justice” and “distributive justice” The failure to distinguish these virtues leads to basic…
Bishop Paprocki is Stealing their happiness? !
You’ve seen the headlines by now: Bishop Paprocki of Springfield diocese is going to perform an exorcism at the same time as the Governor Pat Quinn of Illinois signs a bill into law that enacts so-call marriages between persons of the same sex (as if that were possible anywhere in God’s creation). The story is…
Until the Choir Sings “Amen” – One Easy Secret to a Happy Death
“Life is a play in which for a short time one man represents a judge, another a general, and so on; after the play no further account is made of the dignity which each one had.” –St. John Chrysostom It’s that time of year when we ought to have been focused on the eleventh and…
Common Core and Catholic Education
Catholic Education Daily recently broke the news that The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation – criticized in pro-life circles for its “family planning” grant program encouraging the use of contraceptives in developing countries – paid the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) more than $100,000 to support teacher training and materials on implementing the Common Core…
Fire From Heaven and St. Michael’s Tears
Somewhere in the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty there is claimed to have been placed a plaque inscribed with a passage from the sonnet The New Colossus written by Emma Lazarus. The passage compares the two bronze statues for purpose: Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame, With conquering limbs astride from land…
The Church and Politics
When discussing the problems of faith-based Alinskyian organizing, people frequently will say, “the Church has no business in politics!” That makes a memorable slogan but it’s not true, of course. The truth is complicated. Blessedly, we have a contemporary pope who was extremely articulate and capable of expressing complicated truths in clear language and short…
Dark Night Arrives
Finally, today, I had a box in my mailbox — I was hoping, and it turned out to be the box for which I have been waiting. The Fall catalog of Roman Catholic Books advertised this saucy title from Dr. Alice von Hildebrand: It is precisely what it says: a critique of the Theology of the…
Spring a Friend — the All Souls Day way
“Not by weeping,” says St. John Chrysostom, “but by prayer and almsgiving are the dead relieved.” Know anybody that passed away this past year? Time to visit their grave and pray for them, because you can get a soul out of purgatory today due to that wrinkle which permits a plenary indulgence to be gained for…
All Souls Day
Ah! that day of tears and mourning, From the dust of earth returning, Man for judgment must prepare him, Spare, O God, in mercy spare him. Lord, all-pitying, Jesus blest, Grant them Thine eternal rest.
