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The incorporation of Anglican hymnody into English-language Catholic worship is one of the great blessings of the past 50 years. And within that noble musical patrimony, Ralph Vaughan Williams surely holds pride of place among modern composers. Well do I remember the summer day in 1965 when I heard a massed chorus of men and women under the direction of my old choirmaster, Robert Twynham, rock the Baltimore Civic Center with all eight verses of Vaughan William’s masterpiece, “For All the Saints,” the processional hymn at the opening Mass of what used to be known as a “Liturgical Week.” It was stirring beyond words. And if a retrospective look at the program of lectures and seminars that followed reveals hints of choppy waters ahead in implementing the liturgical reforms mandated by the Sec...

2 Minute Read December is a month in the Catholic Church where the liturgical year ends and is renewed by the season of Advent. It is a month where we see the general theme of the liturgical season being echoed in nature. Darkness has crept over the world, and is increasing each day. Yet, there is hope for soon the days will begin to lengthen and the sun will conquer the night. The earth reveals that there is a light in this dark place and that Light reigns victorious. A Passing Shadow The great Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien knew this reality very well. Throughout his works there is an ongoing contrast between the dark world and the light that illumines it. In particular, Tolkien stressed that even though there is great evil in the world, goodness always triumphs in the end. This theme of...

This month on Craigslist, tucked among ads for worn couches and dusty pianos, was an odd and poignant offer from a woman in Tulsa. “Anybody need a grandma for Christmas?” she wrote. “I’ll even bring food and gifts for the kids! I have nobody and it really hurts.” The response to the Oklahoma woman was swift, and in some cases cruel, with cynical comments that accused her of carrying out a hoax or called her a parasite hoping to prey on a generous family. One person told her to go kill herself. The woman quickly took down the post, but not before 21-year-old Carson Carlock took a screenshot of it after finding the ad while scouring Craigslist for free items. He posted the screenshot on Facebook on Dec. 11 with the hashtag “FINDGRANDMA.” Naturally, thousands of people around the country shar...

Tom Hanks has brought the beloved Fred Rogers to major motion picture screens this holiday season. What is it about his tenderness we seem to long for? What is it about his model for caring for children and one another that we need to recapture?  Erica Komisar is a psychoanalyst in New York City and author of “Being There: Why Prioritizing Motherhood in the First Three Years Matters.” In recent weeks, she’s written powerfully about Fred Rogers, political correctness, and the faith of children as a columnist for the Wall Street Journal.  Angelus contributing editor Kathryn Jean Lopez asked her some questions about parenting, nostalgia, and what our renewed interest in Mr. Rogers in 2019 might promise for the future. Erica Komisar. (© Sharon Schuster) Kathryn Jean Lopez: In your op...

Did the pagans really worship idols? If so, what was going on? To be precise, they did not worship idols as such, but they worshipped the gods who they believed the idols represented. But it was more than that. They also believed that the idols became the channels for the invisible god. If you like the spirit of the god channeled in and through the idol. In other words, they believed their demon gods and goddesses could infest the physical objects. This is why certain idols were venerated as sacred–because it was believed they were such effective transmitters or carriers of the spirit of the god. Recently, in reading an Old Testament reading from Isaiah it struck me. The pagan idol worship itself was a pointer to the incarnation of the Lord. The prophet writes, And so I revealed things bef...

In his Christmas message of 1944 – the fifth year of a Second World War that spanned the globe with its suffering – Pope Pius XII offered these words: The Church has the mission to announce to the world . . . the highest and most needed message that there can be: the dignity of man, the call to be sons of God.  It is the powerful cry which, from the manger in Bethlehem to the furthest confines of the earth, resounds in the ears of men at a time when that dignity is tragically low. The holy story of Christmas proclaims this inviolable dignity of man with a vigor and authority that cannot be gainsaid. – an authority and vigor that infinitely transcend that which all possible declarations of the rights of man could achieve. Christmas, the great feast of the Son of God who appeared in hum...

A recent analysis by the Pew Research Center shows the rather unsurprising fact that sermons at Catholic masses are much shorter than those at Protestant and Evangelical services. The Catholic News Agency reports: An analysis of nearly 50,000 sermons, given across a variety of Christian denominations during the months of April and May this year, found that the median length of a sermon was 37 minutes, but for Catholic priests, the average length was just 14 minutes. Pew found that historically black Protestant sermons had the longest median length of 54 minutes, while mainline Protestant sermons were an average of 25 minutes long, with evangelical churches falling in between at 39 minute [sic] per sermon (CNA). Catholic clergy are generally considered to be poorer preachers than their Prot...

Yesterday, I experienced something of a “Saint Joseph Synergy,” finding a copy of Fr. Donald H. Calloway’s Consecration to St. Joseph in my mailbox, and on the very same day that we read at Mass: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,but before they lived together,she was found with child through the Holy Spirit.Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man,yet unwilling to expose her to shame,decided to divorce her quietly.  (Matt 1:18-19) Having the book in my hand on the same day in which Joseph is featured in our readings felt a bit like one of those moments when the Holy Spirit is giving me a pronounced slap upside the head, saying “pay attention.” For that reason (and a few others) I am asking St. Joseph to be my patron ...

The Melbourne Assessment Prison in West Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, where Cardinal George Pell remains imprisoned in solitary confinement. (Canley [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)]) Sources tell the Register that the cardinal, whose appeal of his conviction for sexual abuse is now being considered by Australia’s High Court, is enduring difficult conditions in solitary confinement. VATICAN CITY — Cardinal George Pell may be allowed to receive Holy Communion in his prison cell on Christmas Day but he will still not be permitted to celebrate Mass, sources close to the cardinal have told the Register this week. Since the cardinal was jailed and placed in solitary confinement in February, the Melbourne Assessment Prison where he is imprisoned has forbidden the ...

Some writers struggle for years to achieve a proper harmony in their work between style and substance. For some, that precious concinnity remains elusive till the end. So it is always something of a happy surprise when an author discovers his or her ideal idiom in the twilight of a long career. In a sense, Richard Dawkins has always been a writer of books for children—or, at any rate, for readers with childish minds—but not until now, it seems, has it occurred to him to write explicitly as a children’s author. Tο this point, he has made a good living out of a relative paucity of gifts. As a third-tier zoologist, a popularizer of both scientific truths and pseudo-scientific speculations, and a tireless enemy of all religious beliefs (whether he understands them or not), he has gone far on a...