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The journalist, mystic and saint is a fitting patron for the blogosphere. 1. The miracle for his canonization involved a fellow Carmelite. When Florida Carmelite Father Michael Driscoll received a diagnosis of stage-4 melanoma in 2004, he knew where to turn: He began praying for the intercession of Blessed Titus Brandsma, who had been martyred in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. A fellow priest gave Father Driscoll a second-class relic, a patch of black cloth from Brandsma’s tunic, which Father Driscoll held against his forehead each day as he prayed for healing. Father Driscoll had already undergone numerous surgeries to remove smaller skin cancers from his face, but this time, the cancer was widespread. Surgeons removed an advanced metastatic melanoma from his head and neck, as wel...

This past weekend, Pope Francis gave a speech where he stated: It is true that every reform creates resistance. I remember, when I was a boy, when Pius XII began with the first liturgical reform, the first one: you can drink water before communion, fasting for an hour… “But that’s against the sanctity of the Eucharist!”, they rent their garments in despair. Then, the Vespers Mass: “But, how come, Mass is in the morning!”. Then, the reform of the Easter Triduum: “But how is it possible, on Saturday the Lord must rise, now they postpone it to Sunday, to Saturday evening, on Sunday they don’t ring the bells… And where do the twelve prophecies go?”. All these things scandalized closed minds. It also happens today. Indeed, these closed mindsets use liturgical matters to defend their...

The evils of the 20th century hold a strange fascination. We cannot help but read and reread accounts of totalitarian oppression, such as Elie Wiesel’s Night, Anne Frank’s Diary, Viktor Frankl’s profound Man’s Search for Meaning, and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago. Something about these experiences, primarily relating to the horrors of Naziism and Communism, speaks deeply to the resiliency of the human spirit that cannot be crushed even by the most brutal regimes. I also think we’re captivated by the brutality of those regimes because they epitomize in extreme form the inhumanity of our society, subject to the mass manipulation of our technologically saturated culture. They remind us that we live in an ever more dystopian world. Catholics have their own heroic accounts of perse...

A NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER: The president’s recent remarks on abortion after the leaked Supreme Court decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health were blatantly false. In the wake of the unconscionable leaking of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito’s draft decision that would overturn Roe v. Wade, the response from pro-abortion-rights politicians and their supporters has been deplorable.  President Joe Biden’s words and actions have been particularly disturbing, given the office that our nation’s so-called “devout Catholic” president occupies and his frequent public claims to be deeply engaged with his Catholic faith. Biden reaffirmed the primacy of his pro-abortion credentials in an initial White House statement released the morning after Politico published Alito’s draft. Instead ...

(CNN) — Just about everything that supports human life on Antarctica must be brought in from elsewhere, usually by aircraft. And in order for that aircraft to have a place to land somebody has to construct a runway out of solid ice. That “somebody” is Luke Brauteseth and his team. Brauteseth spends part of the year in his native South Africa and the rest in Antarctica, where he and his team handle infrastucture for the upscale White Desert travel company, which has three camps on the world’s southernmost continent. In order to build their most recent camp, Wolf’s Fang in the Queen Maud Land region, Brauteseth and the rest of the team had to begin well in advance of the hoped-for opening. Every building or infrastructure project in Antarctica is planned at least two ...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | May 04, 2022 If the Supreme Court overturns the Roe v. Wade decision—as this week’s stunning leak suggests it will—here are some mistakes that pro-life advocates should avoid: Do not accept the liberal narrative that the Court has thwarted the democratic process. That’s what happened in 1973, when the Roe ruling, in a staggering act of judicial arrogance, struck down laws that had been enacted by the people’s duly elected representatives in all 50 states. By reversing the Roe error, the Court has restored voters’ rights. If abortion advocates truly believe in the democratic process, they should not be worried. Laws restricting abortion will be enacted only if the people support them. Do not be distracted by the hunt for the Supreme Co...

[embedded content] Share via: For many who are exploring Catholicism, the doctrinal arguments regarding Mary may make sense, but there can often still be a mental or spiritual hesitancy to actually living out what the Church teaches about her. Matt Swaim welcomes Matt Leonard and Denise Bossert to share how they wrestled with this issue on their own journeys, and the extraordinary experiences they had that helped completely change the way they thought about Mary. Matt Leonard’s site: matthewsleonard.com Subscribe on YouTube Join Our Telegram Group : Salvation & Prosperity  

High-quality listening is an underrated ability. How well and frequently you listen to others is a better predictor of your leadership potential than your actual intelligence or personality. As a recent review shows, good listeners tend to perform better at work, and to report higher level of wellbeing, as well as more meaningful and fulfilling relationships. We tend to trust them more, and they tend to be seen as curious, empathetic and emotionally intelligent. advertisement advertisement To some degree, the power of listening can be explained by the fact that good listening is rare. We live in a world in which people are often rewarded for self-promoting, being the center of attention, and talking as much as they can, even when they have nothing to say. The fact that Susan Cain‘s rationa...

And finally, Protestants make the point that it is impossible for God to have a mother. “God is a Trinity. If Mary is the Mother of God, she is the mother of the Trinity. Therefore, the Trinity is no longer a Trinity—it would be a Quadrinity! Let’s start with the first objection. To say Mary cannot be the Mother of God because Sacred Scripture does not use those explicit words places the Protestant in an uncomfortable position. He would also have to conclude that multiple other essential Christian doctrines are erroneous because they are not found verbatim in the Bible, either. Take the Trinity, for example. This doctrine is pre-eminent among all Christian doctrines—and yet the term Trinity is not found in the Bible. Nor are terms like homoousios (Gr., “same nature”; Jesus has the “sa...

In the wake of the COVID-19 explosion of fear, we do well to begin reflecting on fear. Fear is a complex passion. On the one hand, there are things that we ought to fear such as grave physical and spiritual dangers. The fear of being near the edge of a cliff might well save our life. The fear of serious sin and the punishment we might experience or the offense to God (who loves us) is both appropriate and holy. Sadly, more people lack this holy fear rooted in the possible loss of what is most precious to us: our eternal life with God. There are also things we fear that we should not, and things that we fear more than we should. These sorts of fears are usually rooted in our disordered and inordinate affections. A disordered affection is a love for something that is sinful. We ought not to ...