Center

Cultivating the earth is an exercise in being human. And this exercise is more important today than ever before as we suffer an increasing loss of a sense of the human difference. Here I mean all of us, not just confused intellectuals or mislead youth. Human life is a matter of exercising various ‘arts.’ To be attentive then to the nature of art in the broad and most important sense can reveal much about the human difference and how better to live it out. But we live in the most art-less age in history. I speak here of much more than the ‘fine arts;’ I mean art in the sense of the many crafts or know-hows that concern how humans go about living on this earth. Aristotle warned long ago of what has largely come to pass. When the main criteria for the crafts come from ‘business’ in the form o...

I don’t know how other priests put their names in the hat for parish assignments. Some dioceses don’t even let you ask. I’m sure many that do ask write a formal email to the bishop cc’ing the vicar general. I’ve only asked for an assignment once, and the vicar general was sitting in his recliner beside me. It was in the height of the COVID lockdown and we each had a COVID-era sized pour of an Old Fashioned. I had heard rumors that Our Lady of Mount Carmel would possibly be open as an assignment that upcoming year, so five sips in I texted my bishop, and a few months later, I got the call. I had been to St. Francisville a few times, for day trips and friends’ weddings. If you know about St. Francisville, you know it’s no Molokai and I’m no Damien. It is a quaint town of only 1,500...

Two priests and a baby? What’s happening at an Ohio parish? Skip to content Two Steubenville priests made headlines this month, when the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that they have legal custody of a two-year-old boy, who is living at their downtown parish rectory.  St. Peter’s Parish, in Steubenville, Ohio. Credit: Ron Cogswell/Flickr. CC BY SA 2.0 A judge will consider the boy’s situation at a custody hearing in October, with the child’s mother reportedly seeking to regain legal care of her son. But while the outcome of the case has yet to be determined, the situation does raise canonical questions, and has prompted discussion among Catholics about whether priests can take legal custody of children. So what’s happened? What does canon law say? And what’s next? The Pillar e...

COMMENTARY: Loving families’ only offense is their fidelity to traditional teaching. I keep being told that most Americans simply don’t care about religious freedom. As a committed Catholic and religious-freedom advocate, I find that intensely frustrating. So I’m doing my best to remind people of the value of religious freedom — and warn them of the nasty things that happen when it’s lost.  A powerful way to do this is through storytelling. I’m sharing the stories of ordinary Americans whose religious liberty has been trampled upon or jeopardized by overzealous government officials pushing newly embraced progressive policies and laws. My organization, the Conscience Project, recently released a short video sharing one family’s struggle to adopt their foster children. I promise you won...

The discovery marks the first time a Columbian mammoth tusk has ever been found in the state. James E. Starnes/MDEQEddie Templeton with the seven-foot mammoth tusk he discovered. In rural Madison County, Mississippi, amateur fossil hunter Eddie Templeton just made a mammoth discovery. As he was walking along a creek earlier this month, looking for fossils and other artifacts, he stumbled upon a massive tusk. Though he initially believed it to be a mastodon tusk, Templeton later learned it was actually a fully intact tusk from a Columbian mammoth — the first ever found in the state. How Eddie Templeton Found The Mammoth Tusk Eddie Templeton often goes out on fossil hunts, walking along the rural creeks of Mississippi with eyes peeled. During one of these treks on Aug. 3, 2024, he noticed so...

Is the Pontifical Academy for Life really an ‘academy’ at all? Skip to content The Pontifical Academy for Life has been at the center of controversy in recent weeks, as ethicists and moral theologians criticize a newly-published text on moral questions concerning end-of-life healthcare.  According to Pontifical Academy for Life officials, The “Little Lexicon on the End-of-Life,” published last month in Italian, was meant to clarify terminology and concepts regarding ethical decision for people facing terminal illnesses or ongoing conditions of brain injury or disability.  Such conditions ar referred to by the academy as “vegetative states” — but while that term is apparently still favored at the academy, it has fallen out of favor among most medical practitioners, especially as n...

A crooked cross, choosing to care, and being two Skip to content Happy Friday friends,  And a happy feast of St. Stephen of Hungary. I will be honest, my own patron included, I have always had mixed feelings about most monarchical saints.  Some notable examples to one side, for much of Western history, the messy business of running a kingdom effectively often seemed to call for the shedding of much blood for the preservation of social orders at variance with human dignity and the radical equality of the Gospel.  To be clear, I’m not some kind of ecclesiastical Commie who thinks you can’t be a saint and king, or that only those who live in hovels can get to heaven. I’m just saying, if you were a king round about the year 1000, as Stephen was, you were expected to do things li...

Why is Jesus asking us to eat his flesh? Why would he want that? That’s the big question on the 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B. Jesus has been leading his own Eucharistic Congress — five Sunday Gospels from the sixth chapter of the Gospel of John that this year came, providentially, in the Sundays that followed the National Eucharistic Congress. So far, we’ve covered the miracles, the manna, and the holy bread from Melchizedek to the Maccabees. In the fourth of the five Sundays, it all comes together in the most significant “offering and eating” event of the Old Testament: The Passover. But before we go there, let’s ask the question: Why does God want to associate himself with our “eating” to start with? This is a key question; perhaps the key question. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus...

ROSARY & ART: The Fourth Glorious Mystery is the Assumption of Our Lady The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary is not mentioned in the Bible, but it has been part of the Tradition of the Church from earliest times. One can find mention of the Church’s faith — which Pope Pius XII finally defined — “that the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory” (Munificentissimus Deus). That faith in Mary’s Assumption is shared by both the Christian West and East (where this Mystery is called Mary’s “Dormition,” or “falling asleep”). Why is this Mystery so important? Because it shows the continuity of God’s plan of salvation. As noted when we meditated on Jesus’ Resurrection, his rising from the ...

By Fr. Jerry Pokorsky ( bio – articles – email ) | Aug 12, 2024 Scrutinize the words of Jesus in the Gospel. He’s not a gossip. He speaks compelling words of truth. He confronts the Pharisees directly and, echoing John the Baptist, courageously indicts them as a “brood of vipers.” He takes accountability for every word. He warns His disciples of the wiles of Herod, referring to him as a fox. When He asks the Twelve, “Who do men say that I am?” He elicits their honest opinion. But we often are chatterboxes in contrast—sometimes sinful gossips. Jesus teaches practical interrelationship skills: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault, between you and him alone. If he listens to you, you have gained your brother. But if he does not listen, take one or two other...

As research continues to expose the catastrophic consequences of unreflective social media use—especially but not only for the young, we realize it is emblematic of a deeper problem affecting all of us. Most troubling is that this problem is so normal and so fostered by common attitudes and practices that it grows unnoticed. What is this problem? We consistently turn our attention away from where it belongs. Put otherwise, we live in varying degrees of distraction from what really matters right now in our life. In this splintering within our reason and will and our attention and affection, we are enervated and unstrung. Our relationships suffer. Real peace escapes us. This affects even, perhaps especially, the serious and well-intentioned. We are designed to be concerned about and so atten...