Today is Divine Mercy Sunday in the Catholic calendar. It’s also known as Doubting Thomas’s Sunday, for today at Mass we read the portion of the Gospel of John that recounts the Apostle Thomas’s transition from disbelief to belief. Notably, the risen Christ invited Thomas to satisfy himself with physical evidence: the wounds in …
Category: Catholic Church
Mar 17 2024
The Meek And The Grand
Happy Saint Patrick’s Day, Gentle Reader! A summary of the great Irish saint’s life and work: St. Patrick (387-493) was born in Kilpatrick, Scotland, to Roman-British parents. He was kidnapped by Irish raiders at the age of sixteen and sold as a slave to a Druid high priest. He worked as a shepherd …
Mar 15 2024
The Easiest Sin
Happy Ides of March, Gentle Reader! If you enjoyed your Pi Day – we did – then perhaps you’ll also enjoy this commemoration of the day, in 44 B.C., when a group of civic-minded patricians decided to take an aspiring dictator “off the ballot” in a rather final and unappealable way. It’s a recipe …
Mar 05 2024
Simple Foolishness Or A Communist Tactical Move?
It has frequently embarrassed me that Jorge Bergoglio, elevated to the Throne of Saint Peter some years back, chose my name for his papal appellation. The man is so demonstrably unfit for his position that the entire College of Cardinals should do severe penance for electing him. And as the successor to Pope Benedict …
Oct 23 2023
Clerical Missteps
The news in religion today focuses on the “Synod on Synodality” currently being held in the Vatican. Many Catholics are seriously concerned about what’s being discussed by the assembled clergy. Longstanding teachings of the Church appear threatened. Of course we won’t know what will come of it all until it’s over and its deliberations …
Oct 13 2023
Events To Commemorate
If you’re not a devotee of unusual holidays, you might not know that today is National M&M Day. The M&M, one of America’s iconic candies, is exceptionally versatile. Not only can you eat them “raw” or bake them into cookies and brownies, you can also play Go with them. The rules differ only slightly …
Jun 11 2023
Corpus Christi Sunday 2023
Many American dioceses celebrate this feast, that of the Body and Blood of Christ, on the Sunday that follows Trinity Sunday, rather than on Thursday as is traditional. So it’s worth a few more words about this celebration, and the specific doctrine that underlies it. Corpus Christi concerns one of the Church’s most …
May 27 2023
When We Need A Miracle…
…God, who always knows what we need, will provide one: The small rural Missouri town of Gower has become an unexpected pilgrimage destination after a nun’s exhumed body showed no visible signs of decomposition — four years after her burial. Hundreds of people have been flocking to the town 40 miles north …
May 07 2023
Human Institutions
They’re imperfect – all of them. Every now and then, a reminder is useful. The Acts of the Apostles contains a pair of segments that make many things plain – indeed, plainer in some ways than the Church would like us to know. The first of them is in Chapter 2: And …
May 05 2023
A Brief Announcement
Someone who gave the name of “Mike Bizzaro,” along with a strange-looking email address, just wrote to inform me that “[my] soul has been removed from Christianity.” He also provided a link to one of the ugliest web pages I’ve had the dubious pleasure of visiting. It is extremely important that anyone who agrees …
Apr 19 2023
Wrong Turnings
Please don’t misinterpret what follows. I love my Church, despite my handful of disagreements with it. But now and then some of its notables go off the rails so dramatically that I’m compelled to take exception to it. The United States has a shortage of Catholic priests. Parishes from coast to coast find …
Mar 15 2023
Personnel Policies
I’ve known a lot of people who were and are smarter than average. That comes from working in occupations that require that characteristic. Bluntly, if your duties will necessarily require careful thinking, distinguishing among things and ideas according to their inherent properties, you must be able to do so. Why else would your employer …
Mar 02 2023
An Attitudinal Imperative
And it came to pass, as he went to Jerusalem, that he passed through the midst of Samaria and Galilee. And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off: And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us. …
Feb 09 2023
The Deserving Poor
American Catholics tend to vote. (Yes, we have other bad habits as well.) Unfortunately, too many vote for Democrats. Why? The tragically misunderstood “social teaching” of the Church. It’s widely believed among Catholics that we have a moral obligation to provide for “the poor.” Note the lack of qualification. Part of the reason …
Feb 09 2023
This Is Mind-Boggling
How are American Catholics under attack? Let me count the ways: The FBI’s Richmond Division would like to protect Virginians from the threat of “white supremacy,” which it believes has found a home within Catholics who prefer the Latin Mass. An intelligence analyst within the Richmond Field Office of the FBI released in …
Feb 06 2023
Had Enough Yet?
I have: Josh Alexander, 16, is not allowed to attend school for the rest of the year after saying he would continue to express his belief that God created only two genders. The school told him his presence would be “detrimental to the physical and mental well-being” of transgender students, Alexander told The …
Jan 08 2023
An Epiphany Story
I’m fairly sure all my Gentle Readers know the story of the Magi and their gifts to the Christ Child. Today – the first Sunday after New Year’s Day – is the day when Catholics celebrate the Epiphany, which includes that momentous visit to the Holy Family from three of the most learned men …
Nov 28 2022
Perspectives
One of my favorite Catholic writers is the late Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Venerable Fulton John Sheen (born Peter John Sheen, May 8, 1895 – December 9, 1979) was an American bishop (later archbishop) of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. His cause for …
Oct 16 2022
Imagination, Orthodoxy, And Faith
Hm. Perhaps that should be “And The Faith,” but let it stand as it is. Yesterday at The Catholic Thing, there appeared an essay, with embedded interview, on Fostering the Catholic Imagination. Let there be no argument: the subject is an important one. There isn’t enough fiction written from a Catholic perspective, which …
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