Center

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...