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Despite being immersed for over 30 years in the study of modern Polish history, I must confess that I’d never heard of the heroic Ulma family until recently. I’ll get to the circumstances of my being introduced to these 20th-century martyrs in a moment. But first, consider their story. Józef Ulma was a prominent personality in Markowa, a village in southeastern Poland. Born in 1900, he had a more extensive education than many of his neighbors and was a farmer, a librarian, and an accomplished photographer at a time when that art form took imagination and great skill. His wife Wiktoria, 12 years younger, was the mother of three girls (Stanisława, Barbara, and Maria) and three boys (Władysław, Franciszek, and Antoni). When the Ulmas’ trial of conscience came in 1944, the children ranged in a...

Credit: Shutterstock. With more than one-third of priests in the United States already retired, priest retirements are expected to outpace ordinations in most U.S. dioceses for several years to come. While the number of retired and retiring priests mirrors the trend of retiring Baby Boomers across the American workforce, clergy retirements represent a significant challenge in the Church — financially, and in terms of the distribution and allocation of resources. There were 24,653 diocesan Catholic priests in the United States in 2020, according to data compiled by CARA, the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate. More than one-third of those priests was retired, and the share of American priests who are retired has more than doubled since 1980.  In nine American dioceses, more ...

Within two weeks of one another, Alice von Hildebrand and Betty White passed away. Both women lived to the venerable age of ninety-nine years. Both were beloved in their respective spheres of influence. Both left a prolific legacy spanning many decades. Neither experienced biological motherhood. The similarities of these two women end there. Indeed, the work and lifestyle and interests of one could be said to have been in direct opposition to the other: von Hildebrand exhorted Catholics to turn back from the rising tide of secularism, scientism, and irreverence that she witnessed crashing upon the shores of her lifetime, whereas White, professionally and personally, heralded these same surging cultural forces. The entertainment culture in which Betty White worked was meant to be a bit (or ...

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio – articles – email ) | Feb 01, 2022 The great problem with Catholicism in the world today is not that so few people are willing to call themselves Catholic but that so many are willing to retain the Catholic name while eliminating the Catholic substance. Of course, we ought to be aware by now that this is the first trick in the book. Satan never begins with the last and greatest temptation, “All these I will give you, if you will fall down and worship me” (Mt 4:9). He always begins with the first and the easiest: “Command these stones to become loaves of bread” (Mt 4:3)—which is to say, “Reinterpret! It is easy to explain why good is really evil, and evil is really good.” It probably is more than just tough luck that it requires a persistent and often un...