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s these 40 Days begin again – and with them, the biggest crowds of the year converge in most places – a fruitful and Blessed Lent to one and all. While the Pope gave a practical guide to living the season well at this morning’s weekly Audience, per immemorial custom, this Ash Wednesday’s principal rite doesn’t come until evening with the penitential procession on the Avventine Hill and Mass at the basilica of Santa Sabina, the first of Rome’s stational churches. Even beyond the ashes sprinkled on his head, today’s traditional rubrics give the Roman Pontiff a further, uniquely pointed “memento” of his mortal weakness – known as the “papal simplex,” the “penitential” miter donned by a Pope on this day is the one in which, in t...

When he was 13 years old, a mere boy was effectively the American ambassador to Russia, in Saint Petersburg. This was because the lad was fluent in French while his nominal superior, the ambassador himself, was not. The boy had already, at his father’s instruction, translated works of Plutarch from Greek and poems by Horace from Latin. His name was John Quincy Adams. When Gian Carlo Menotti was 11 years old, he wrote his first opera, both the libretto and the music: The Death of Pierrot. You may know him for his popular opera Amahl and the Night Visitors. His first formal training in music came when he entered the Milan Conservatory, at age 12. When he was 14 years old, Srinivasa Ramanujan discovered the general solution to quadratic equations (those of the form ax^4 + bx^3 + cx^2 + dx + e...

The latest edition of the Human Rights Campaign’s Corporate Equality Index was released last month, rating more than a thousand of the largest corporations in the U.S. for their “commitment to LGBTQ equality and inclusion.” In their press release, the HRC, which is the largest LGBTQ lobbying firm in the country and the self-appointed authority over corporate compliance to standards they created, excitedly announced that a record 686 of America’s leading companies and law firms now rigorously protect LGBTQ people. Nearly half the world’s Fortune 500 companies earned a 100 rating—the highest possible—while more than half of the top 200 law firms in the United States received the same score. It’s ironic how often orthodox Christians are accused of being obsessed with sex these days. After all...

My eyes unexpectedly became a waterfall at a Saturday morning “feminine genius” breakfast. The night before, I had read on Twitter about the investigation that yielded credible testimonies that Jean Vanier, founder of the L’Arche movement of homes for men and women with developmental disabilities, had abused women under the guise of spiritual direction, using some kind of mystic cover for his predation. Shock, horror, devastation — these all would describe some of my reactions to the news. I wondered what more we would learn, and I thought about those women who had to put up with the world being convinced that Vanier was a living saint! I was ashamed of myself. I had written about him, quoted him, even made the case that he should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And I was furious, too. S...

ROME – One of the great Lenten traditions in Rome is the daily trek for Mass to one of the station churches, meaning churches marking spots where early Christians would commemorate the martyrs and celebrate the Eucharist, and where popes used to make the rounds themselves during Lent. For English-speakers, the 7:00 a.m. daily liturgy is organized by the Pontifical North American College, the residence for American seminarians studying in the Eternal City. One of the things that can’t help but strike a visitor is the strong turnout of clergy every morning; while the ratio of priests to lay faithful in the US and Europe overall is about 1-1,300, at the station churches it’s usually more like 1-2 or 1-3. It’s a reminder of an inescapable truth about Rome: There may be a priest shortage in the...

Rumors of Betelgeuse’s impending death have been greatly exaggerated. The red supergiant star appears to be in no danger of imminently exploding, even though a recent, dramatic dip in brightness hinted that it could be on its last legs. The latest observations reveal instead that the star is starting to regain its former light. “Betelgeuse has definitely stopped dimming and has started to slowly brighten,” a team reported on February 22 in the Astronomer’s Telegram. “Observations of all kinds continue to be needed to understand the nature of this unprecedented dimming episode and what this surprising star will do next.” With Betelgeuse’s light on the rise, astronomers are now hoping to figure out what caused such a precipitous drop in brightness at the end of 2019—while simultaneously deal...

By Tom Hoopes, February 27, 2020 This Sunday’s readings tell the story of two different temptations: Adam and Eve’s on the one hand and Christ’s on the other. The temptations have remarkable similarities to each other — and to what you and I face this Lent. The Church chose readings for the First Sunday of Lent, Year A, to prepare us to face an enemy who is relentless and cunning. First, the devil tempts our appetites. We win by fasting with Christ. The devil’s first instinct in both the Garden of Eden and the desert of Judea is to tempt with food. With Adam and Eve, he tempts people in a land of plenty with a forbidden fruit; with Jesus, he uses simple loaves of bread to tempt someone in extreme hunger. In both cases, the devil hopes that his victims will choose with their stomachs i...