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ROME – Suppose that earlier this week, when plans for what eventually happened were confirmed, the Vatican Press Office had issued something like the following statement. “Pope Francis usually celebrates the Mass of the Lord’s Supper on Holy Thursday outside the Vatican with vulnerable and excluded people, expressing the Lord’s special love for them. Due to Covid-19 concerns, such a gesture is impossible this year. Instead, the Holy Father has chosen to celebrate the Mass of the Lord’s Supper this year at the Vatican apartment of His Eminence Angelo Cardinal Becciu. “To avoid any possible misunderstandings, it is to be recalled that there are currently investigations underway of financial transactions in which the former Archbishop Becciu was involved as the Substitute of the Secretariat o...

Introduction The Myth The date of Easter appears to jump around the calendar at random, sometimes in March, sometimes in April, and never on the same date in successive years. The formula for calculating when Easter will fall seems shrouded in mystery and secrecy, a piece of arcane knowledge that only a genius like Einstein could possibly understand. The Reality Actually, the date of Easter is so easy to calculate that a bright ten-year-old with a calculator could follow the simple steps. It is far from random: the date of Easter this year allows you to predict when it will fall next year surprisingly accurately. And the history behind the formula is a fascinating blend of astronomy, mathematics, religion and politics which spans almost two thousand years. This web site has been created to...

By Tom Hoopes, April 1, 2021 I I’ll never forget what a colleague said to me one Easter when I was working on Capitol Hill. “I feel like Easter changed everything,” he said. “I bet even colors were different before Easter.” He is right. The incarnation, death and resurrection of God was a cataclysmic event that changed everything such that only poets can express it. On that first Easter morning, though, it was Mary Magdalen, Peter and John who struggled to understand it. On this year’s Easter Sunday, the Resurrection of the Lord, Year B, we can learn a lot from them. Look carefully at what Mary Magdalen, John, and Peter did. St. Mary Magdalene is the faithful Jew who carefully observed the Sabbath day of rest on Holy Saturday, but then, “On the first day of the week,” as soon as ...

Happy Good Friday friends, I say happy, and that feels odd. Happiness is not really the word you reach for when contemplating our own cross. But, at the same time, when considering the Passion each year, I cannot but hear in my head the words of the paschal Praeconium: “Oh happy fault, that deserved so great a savior.” It is, for me, one of the purest consolations of the Triduum that, whatever personal sins are weighing on me, and whatever it is in the world that tempts me to despair, the awful majesty of the crucifixion and the seismic, cosmic rupture of the power of death rendered by the reality of the resurrection dwarfs all else by comparison. So great a savior indeed. Credit: György Soponyai/CC BY-NC 2.0 JD and I have been trying to focus ourselves on the spiritual this Holy Week, and...

Inspired by this 16th-century depiction of Christ’s Passion, the committed atheist created numerous sketches of the Crucifixion. Picasso was more than perhaps the greatest artist of the 20th century; he was also one of its most notorious atheists. Despite this, there is one theme that seems to show a different side to him. Over the years he drew or painted around 50 scenes of the Crucifixion. This was not much for a man who created more than 20,000 works during his lifetime. What’s curious is that there are no other religious themes. The only exception is one of his earliest paintings: a young girl – perhaps his sister – at her First Holy Communion. Otherwise, it’s all about the culmination of Christ’s Passion. Could it be that Picasso was quietly moved by Calvary? He tried to contra...

Dear Mr. President, This is my third open letter in the pages of Newsweek, addressing you as a fellow American Catholic. The reason for these public overtures is self-evident: the United States has never before had a president who touts his religious credentials and bona fides, even as he backs one policy after another that subverts his church’s teachings. So long as this dissonance continues, it needs addressing—if only to clarify a few basics about what Catholicism teaches, and what it doesn’t. We are not speaking here of issues about which citizens might reasonably disagree, like the fair distribution of taxes, the filibuster, the canceling of the Keystone pipeline and so on. We are focusing instead on the policies of your presidency that would, if taken to their logical con...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Mar 30, 2021 The Easter Triduum approaches, promising us the most beautiful and solemn ceremonies in the Catholic liturgical tradition. But this year—like last year—for most Catholics that promise will be unfulfilled. Unless you are one of the fortunate few, you will not hear a performance of Allegri’s haunting Miserere this week. The congregation at your parish will not be invited to join in singing the Stabat Mater on Good Friday, or the traditional joyous hymns on Easter Sunday. There will probably be no procession, no kissing of the crucifix, no kindling of the fire outside the door of the church at the Easter vigil. With “social distancing” rules in place and many Catholics still afraid to come, the church will not be packed for ...

“WWJPD,” I scribbled frantically on the piece of paper. “What Would John Paul II do?”  I poked my wife, pointed at the paper, and then frantically tried to get the moderator’s attention. We were at the final talk in a Catholic conference, listening to speakers explain, with increasing alarm, that Catholics in the United States face overwhelming odds against enemies who are destroying everything we believe. One speaker talked about the decadence of every sector of American life. Another showed how Plato’s warnings about greed leading to tyranny are coming true. This last one described how children who were hurt and confused were being coerced into making a life-altering decision to change their bodies, and how the Equality Act, backed by the nation’s leading Catholic politicians — the ...

Archbishop Charles Chaput, OFM Cap., who retired in January 2020 as Archbishop of Philadelphia, sat down with The Pillar this week to talk about the future of the Church, a Jay-Z song he likes, and his new book, “Things Worth Dying For.” Archbishop Charles Chaput talks March 29 with The Pillar via zoom. Below are excerpts from The Pillar’s conversation with Chaput, which have been edited for length and clarity. A full version of this conversation can be heard here. The Pillar: Archbishop, your new book is “Things Worth Dying For.” It is your fourth book, is that right? That’s correct. It’s my last one also.  I’ve said that three times before, but I mean it this time. Share Archbishop, the book is a reflection on the things that mean the most in life, at least as you see th...

Catholics are reacting to the recent release of Lil Nas X’s “Satan Shoes.” Rapper Lil Nas X announced his “Satan Shoes” release on March 27, creating an uproar amongst Christian conservatives. The Nike Air Max shoes contain one drop of human blood, a pentagram, and have “Luke 10:18” stitched on them. The shoes cost $1,018.00 per pair and sold out in less than one minute. The rapper manufactured 666 pairs, inscribing each pair with individual numbers. The packaging contains satanic art, and the website’s ad uses the Catholic edition of the Bible. However, Nike told news outlets that they did not participate in creating the shoes. The shoe company filed a lawsuit against Lil Nas X and MSCHF, the product creators. The lawsuit says the rapper and MSCHF created the shoes “without Nike’s approva...

This week, The Pillar published a special report on parish collections during the pandemic. You can read part one, part two, and part three here. Data analyst Brendan Hodge created the dataset, conducted extensive analysis of the data, and wrote much of the series. To conclude our series, The Pillar invited Brendan to offer final analysis on the project, the opportunities and limits of data-based journalism, and his thoughts on parish giving as a Catholic father and husband. St. Joseph Cathedral, Columbus, Ohio. Credit: Nheyob/wikimedia. CC BY SA 3.0 We set out to understand the effect of the pandemic on parish collections.  In one sense, it was an easy task. The data was out there in a publicly available form: updates on weekly collections in parish bulletins published online by pari...

The Passion, which we read in the liturgy for Palm Sunday, is too long to comment on in detail, so we will only examine a portion of it here. It may be of some value to examine the problems associated with the more moderate range of personalities involved. The usual villains (the Temple leaders, Judas, and the recruited crowd shouting, “Crucify him!”) are unambiguously wicked and display their sinfulness openly. But there are others involved whose struggles and neglectfulness are more subtle, yet no less real. It is in examining these figures that we can learn a great deal about ourselves, who, though we may not openly shout, “Crucify him,” are often not as unambiguously holy and heroic as Jesus’ persecutors are wicked and bold. As we read the Passion we must understand that this is not me...