Author: S&P
Whether you realize it or not, you are made for contemplation…
Perhaps the most overlooked truth about human life is that we are made for contemplation. All of us. It’s not that our activist and practical age directly rejects this. Almost worse, our customs, practices and expectations take for granted that anything called contemplation is simply peripheral. Josef Pieper expresses a radically different worldview, that of both Greek philosophers and Christian t...
Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins Meets Pope Francis, Follows Microsoft and IBM in Signing Vatican’s ‘Rome Call for AI Ethics’…
The Rome Call underlines the need for “algor-ethics,” which, according to the text, is the ethical use of artificial intelligence according to the principles of transparency, inclusion, accountability, impartiality, reliability, security, and privacy. The text quotes the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in pointing to the equal dignity and rights of all humans, which AI must protect and guara...
The Church Draft: God’s Divine Roster for an Apostolic Age…
As the NFL draft approaches at the end of April, speculation runs rampant among fans about which players their teams will take and which areas of their rosters have the greatest needs. As a lifelong fan of American Football, I have spent countless hours poring over articles, highlight tape and opinion pieces, trying to predict what my team might do with their picks. In full disclosure, I realize t...
Here are the strengths of Dignitas Infinita — along with 7 notable ambiguities in the document…
(Image: Alan Liu/Unsplash.com) The claim implicit in the title of the DDF’s recently published Declaration, Dignitas Infinita (DI), has generated considerable controversy. The matter of infinite dignity Do human beings have infinite dignity? Certainly, those who through baptism receive a share in the divine nature, which is by definition infinite, also share in the infinit...
Did Pope Francis Just Endorse ‘Parish Shopping’?
In an interview released on Wednesday, Pope Francis endorsed a practice that used to be frowned upon but now is a robust phenomenon among practicing Catholics: choosing their own parish. Pope Francis granted an interview to Norah O’Donnell of CBS News — his first such television interview with an American network. While the full interview will be aired on 60 Minutes next month, excerpts were relea...
Pope Francis May Visit United States in September After UN Invitation…
Pope Francis is also expected at the end of September in Belgium, where he is scheduled to celebrate the 600th anniversary of the University of Louvain, which has been divided into two different linguistic entities since the 1960s. The Holy Father told Mexican television network Televisa last December that he intended to travel to Belgium in 2024. According to a source familiar with the planning o...
Welcome to the Reign of Gay, Ecclesiastical Edition…
In a certain sense, the Sexual Revolution is over; at the very least, the walls have been breached and the consequences are serious and long-lasting. The Reign of “Gay” is proud, loud, and quite unwilling to tolerate dissent or discussion. And until we face that fact and come to grips with the situation as it really is, we will not be able to respond, regroup, and rebuild in any meaningful way. Af...
Cincinnati’s Catholic Xavier University lists abortion in its health insurance plan…
University says it does not cover abortion even though plan says so Xavier University’s health insurance plan not only appears to cover abortion – it looks like the school specifically added it into the coverage. But the Catholic Cincinatti university denies its student health insurance plan covers abortion. A “policy endorsement” on the plan appeared to delete an “exclusion” of abortion. The plan...
The Fullness of Life: Bishop Erik Varden’s Resurrection of Chastity…
While Lent offers us a clear path of conversion, turning away from the world, Easter invites us into God’s own life. In Lent, we seek to die with Christ; in Easter, we must live with him. It appears an anticlimactic season after the rigors of prayer and fasting, but Lent is ordered to Easter as a period of training to live a more joyful and integrated life in Christ. The word “chastity” might take...
Can You Really Run on Top of a Train, Like in the Movies?
Just because you see something done in a movie, that doesn’t mean you should try it yourself. Take, for example, a human running on top of a moving train. For starters, you can’t be sure it’s real. In early Westerns, they used moving backdrops to make fake trains look like they were in motion. Now there’s CGI. Or they might speed the film up to make a real train look faster...
Cardinal Fernández: New Document on Discerning Apparitions ‘Being Finalized’…
The last time the Vatican’s doctrinal office issued a general document on apparitions was in 1978, during the final months of the pontificate of Pope Paul VI. The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith is putting the finishing touches to a new document that sets out clear rules on discerning apparitions and other such supernatural events. The dicastery’s prefect, Cardinal Victor Fernández, told t...
Pope Francis Gives Interview to CBS News on Ukraine, Gaza: ‘a Negotiated Peace Is Better Than a War Without End’…
Pope Francis pleaded for peace worldwide amid ongoing wars in Ukraine and Gaza, telling CBS News on Wednesday that “a negotiated peace is better than a war without end.” “Please. Countries at war, all of them, stop the war. Look to negotiate. Look for peace,” the pope, speaking through a translator, told “CBS Evening News” anchor and managing editor Norah ...
