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For reasons too complex to go into, while completing a doctorate in the German College in Rome in the 1990s, I shared breakfast with the then Cardinal Ratzinger every Thursday morning for nearly three years. Those breakfasts were often initially awkward because, although the Cardinal was always gracious, he had no ‘small chat’ at all and was fairly hopeless at making casual conversation. Ratzinger was a painfully shy man who did not find socialising easy. At those breakfasts, therefore, I would engage him in theology – at which point he would come alive. I was writing a thesis on the great German theologian Karl Rahner, with whom Ratzinger had taught, and so it was easy to draw him into theological conversation about Rahnerian themes. For Ratzinger was, above all else, an intellectual. He ...

Happy Friday friends, And a very happy Epiphany to those of you who celebrate it today. I know that in many places the feast is transferred to the Sunday, but here in Rome they still keep the day on the day, so to speak. It’s been an interesting few days for JD and me, here in Rome to cover the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI. We’ll get to all of that in a second. And hopefully we have a few more friends to see and catch up with before we head home over the weekend. But I have to admit to a certain sadness to being away from home today. As JD has mentioned on the podcast more than once, I take the celebration of Christmas very seriously, and I make a real effort to keep making merry right through until today’s feast, when my wife and I usually host a Twelfth Night party at our house. We had t...

After my first year as a graduate student at the University of Notre Dame, I had the chance to meet then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in person. I attended his small Mass for a group of about 25 German pilgrims in the Vatican and got to receive Holy Communion from him. After Mass, he knelt alone in prayerful thanksgiving. As he arose from prayer, I approached him, along with a couple other graduate students. I wasn’t sure what to expect. At that time, after only Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa, he was the most well-known Catholic in the world. He had no entourage, no security, and no plan to start his day with lowly graduate students. We introduced ourselves, and then he asked us individually about our studies. I’m sure he must have had much to do, a schedule packed with meeting thos...

From a reader… QUAERITUR: After a number of years away from the faith of my childhood, I made the decision to return to the Catholic church.  After attending a few masses, my heart longed to receive the Eucharist, so I made the necessary appointment to go to confession at the parish.  In my youth, we were instructed to go to confession every 2 to 3 months or as the need arose after an examination of conscience.  And I have done this.  Each time I received absolution and prayed my penance and reread Psalm 51.  During mass, I would repeat my prayers and my Act of Contrition before receiving Jesus again.Recently people I know who have also been away from the church for years asked me to take them to mass.  I did so.  But when it came time for communion, they...

“I do not believe that I have ever written a children’s book,” the great Maurice Sendak once said in an interview. “I don’t write for children,” he told Colbert. “I write — and somebody says, ‘That’s for children!’” This sentiment — the idea that designating certain types of literature as “children’s” is a choice entirely arbitrary and entirely made by adults — has since been eloquently echoed by Neil Gaiman, but isn’t, in fact, a new idea. On March 8, 1939, J.R.R. Tolkien (January 3, 1892–September 2, 1973), celebrated as one of the greatest fantasy writers in history, gave a lecture titled “Fairy Stories,” eventually adapted into an essay retitled “On Fairy-Stories” and included in the appendix to Tales from the Perilous Realm (public library). At the crux of his argument, which explores...

It’s been a long time coming, but I’m hearing Mel Gibson will finally be shooting “The Passion of the Christ: Resurrection” in a few months. A late Spring production is currently being eyed with Jim Caviezel set to return in the role of Jesus. The sequel to Gibson’s 2004 mega-hit “The Passion of the Christ” has been ruminating in development for around ten years now. The original made $612 Million on a scant $30 million budget making it one of the most succesful independent films of all-time. ‘Passion’ was a faithful account of the New Testament. We all know the Bible isn’t tame on violence and the film made us very well aware of Jesus’ final days of suffering before his ultimate crucifixion. Gibson has been hard at work on the screenplay with “Braveheart” screenwriter Rand...

A gentle fog, calls of “Santo Subito!” and a whole lot of lederhosen. VATICAN CITY — Pope Benedict XVI, whose entire theological project was singular focused on the person of Christ, once described Jesus as the one “in whom God’s love descends upon human beings.” The weather at the scholarly Pope’s funeral today provided a poetic illustration of this truth — a gentle fog enshrouded St. Peter’s Basilica as the Church universal commended Benedict to the love and mercy of God. “The holy cloud, the shekinah, is the sign of the presence of God himself. The cloud hovering over the Tent of Meeting indicated that God was present,” the late Pope had written in Volume One of his Jesus of Nazareth trilogy. The fog, which dissipated throughout the Mass as the Roman morning sun broke through, also brou...

Pope Francis will celebrate the funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI Jan. 5, and coverage of the Mass and related events will be broadcast by EWTN. You can watch live over at the EWTN Youtube channel. Due to the time difference, those of us in Colorado will have to tune-in beginning in the early hours of the morning. The schedule of events and special broadcasts is as follows: 12:30 a.m. MT – Funeral Mass for the Repose of the Soul of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI – Pope Francis celebrates the Solemn Funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, live from St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. 6 a.m. MT – Mass for the Repose of the Soul of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI – Live from the Chapel of Our Lady of the Angels in Irondale, AL, celebrated by the Franciscan Missionaries of the Eternal Word. 7 ...

COMMENTARY: The last of the monumental figures of 20th-century Catholicism bears no resemblance to the caricature created by his theological and cultural foes. The Joseph Ratzinger I knew for 35 years — first as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), later as Pope Benedict XVI and then pope emeritus — was a brilliant, holy man who bore no resemblance to the caricature that was first created by his theological enemies and then set in media concrete.   The cartoon Ratzinger was a grim, relentless ecclesiastical inquisitor/enforcer, “God’s Rottweiler.” The man I knew was a consummate gentleman with a gentle soul, a shy man who nonetheless had a robust sense of humor, and a Mozart lover who was fundamentally a happy person, not a sour crank.    The cartoon R...

Ronald Knox is a spiritual master whose value is not found in a “verbal fireworks show that will wow you” but preaching “utterly useful to one attempting to live Christian life.” For that reason, it is a delight to see that Cluny Media has republished two of his classics. Taken together they provide a kind of brief guide to the Christian life. The Belief of Catholics (245 pages, Cluny, 2022) and The Mass in Slow Motion (130 pages, Cluny, 2022) Ronald Knox is a spiritual master whose value is not found in a “verbal fireworks show that will wow you” but preaching “utterly useful to one attempting to live Christian life.” For that reason, it is a delight to see that in 2022 Cluny Media has republished two of his classics: his 1927 apologetic work, The Belief of Catholics, and the 1948 walk th...

This agenda has not yet succeeded in achieving the church of liberal Catholicism’s desires: Again and again Francis has seemed to push toward an explicit change on some controverted issue, from communion for the divorced and remarried to the rule of priestly celibacy, only to choose a more ambiguous course instead. And in certain cases, as part of his strange postretirement role, Benedict made intellectual interventions that seemed to operate as warnings to his successor not to go too far. But the Francis era has certainly returned the church to a state of open theological division. The liberal churches of Northern Europe, with the German bishops in the lead, are pushing hard for revolution — meaning progressive positions on sexual issues, lay leadership and intercommunion with Protestants...