Author: S&P
A warning from St. Gregory the Great for the priest to guard his heart…
For spiritual reading, I am currently reading The Book of the Pastoral Rule by St. Gregory the Great. Pope Saint Gregory was a master at taking details from the Old Testament priesthood and applying them to the priests of the New Covenant. In one reflection, he remarks on the details of the breastplate of the high priest and what they signify. In effect, Pope Gregory instructs the...
Notre Dame Professor Offers Abortion Access to Students, Calls Pro-Life Critics ‘White Nationalist Catholic Hate Groups’…
Abortion assistance offered to students despite IN law, ND policy “For me, abortion is a policy issue. And yes, my view runs afoul of Church teaching, but in other areas, my positions are perfectly aligned [with the Church],” Prof. Tamara Kay of the Keough School of Global Affairs told the Rover following the September 21 panel, “Post-Roe America: Making Intersectional Feminist Sense of Abortion B...
The Trilemma Of C.S. Lewis: Was Jesus a Liar?
In the previous pieces for this series, we referenced C. S. Lewis’s Trilemma, essentially his argument that: in claiming He was God, Jesus was either a liar, insane, or God. But before we addressed these three possibilities, we provided historical evidence that Jesus actually walked the Earth and actually claimed to be God. This brings us to Lewis’ first possibility: Was Jesus a liar?
Faith does not dampen the desire to know, but inflames it…..
Some people think a Catholic intellectual is something like a waterproof towel, a screen door on a submarine, or an ejection seat on a helicopter, as Jonathan Swan quipped. These people must have forgotten about the long list of Catholic intellectuals, from Augustine and Aquinas in the premodern world, Leonardo da Vinci and Thomas More in the Renaissance, and Elizabeth Anscombe and Alasdair M...
Truth seems to be hard to find today. But Jesus is the Truth…..
[embedded content] Truth seems to be hard to find today. We live in a time and culture where more and more people think we can make up our own story for meaning. But perhaps we aren’t finding what we’re looking for (as the ever-increasing mental health data reveals) is because the answer isn’t found in creating our own story. God has already given us one, and through Him, we find...
The year ahead will reveal who the true backwardists are…..
Editor’s Note: This article is part of the Register’s symposium on Vatican II at 60. For Catholics too young to remember the immediate post-conciliar period, the 60th anniversary of Vatican II offers a chance to relive the past. The Church is going backwards. There is a wide consensus on that. There is disagreement over the precise historical destination. With increasingly pointed rhet...
It’s still too early to celebrate Halloween…
Our culture’s shallow understanding of All Hallows’ Eve starts ringing hollow weeks in advance Five years ago, I wrote a blog called “It’s Never Too Early to Celebrate Christmas.” I wrote it because many people around me were lamenting the fact that retail stores were already decorating for Christmas in November, the Hallmark Channel was showing Christmas-themed rom-coms, people were buying Christ...
‘The Time Has Arrived’ — New York Judge Paves Way for Recognition of ‘Multi-Person Relationships’…
MANHATTAN — A New York judge opened the door to legal recognition of multi-partner relationships while ruling in a housing court case. In a ruling on a dispute over a rent-stabilized apartment, Judge Karen May Bacdayan of the Civil Court of the City of New York, opined that the legal protection of same-sex relationships shouldn’t be limited to two people. The case centers on three men: Scott...
Kristen Van Uden: How atheism developed and took root…
“This book really shows us that atheism and communism were not natural disasters that were just bound to happen, but rather they were ideological revolutions that were carefully calculated,” said… “This book really shows us that atheism and communism were not natural disasters that were just bound to happen, but rather they were ideological revolutions that were carefully c...
Food insecurity at the time of Christ…
When traveling in the Middle East, I especially enjoy the typical Mediterranean diet: fresh, local, and meat-free, consisting of vegetables (fresh or cured), fruit, dairy products, legumes, olives, breads, etc. This would have been the standard fare in Jesus’ time as well, though minus a few essentials of today: tomatoes, peppers, potatoes, apples, pears, bananas etc. Meat was rare and in 1st-cent...
Vatican’s Synod on Synodality Organizers Say Synod is ‘Fruit’ of Second Vatican Council…
The CDF document noted that in the history of the Church, synods and councils were nearly interchangeable terms for formal ecclesiastical assemblies. VATICAN CITY — In a message marking the 60th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II, the organizers of the Synod on Synodality called the Synod of Bishops a “fruit” of the council. Quoting Pope Francis, the synod’s general secretariat on Monday sai...
How to give God perfect thanks…
One of the great human inadequacies is our inability to give proper and adequate thanks to God. Perhaps the biggest problem is that we don’t even realize the vast majority of what He does for us; it is hidden from our eyes. A further problem is that in our fallen condition we seem to be wired to magnify our problems and minimize or discount the enormous blessings of each moment. God sustains every...
