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We are consistently told that bodily presence is optional and expendable. This message is reinforced by technologies that make being ‘remote’ easy and attractive. And the fact is we have changed our lives accordingly—to the detriment, especially, of the relationships that matter most. Human life demands embodiment. This is not an accident, nor is it optional. Sure, a kind of human life can be carried on in various degrees of disembodiment; this is evident all around us. But it is a diminution, a kind of shadow or shell of what could and should be. Today we can see this truth in a way never before possible. Our technologies empower and indeed encourage unprecedented forms of disembodiment, and so we now have empirical evidence, if we have eyes to interpret it, of just how bodily-dependent w...

Considering my posts have gotten later and later each day of this trip and I’m flying home bright and early in the morning, here’s another double feature from Thursday and Friday in Rome: Started the day with another station church Mass, this time at the Basilica of Ss. Cosmas & Damian, which has a famous apse mosaic depicting the two saints and the risen Christ, along with the pope who commissioned it on the far left: Pope St. Felix IV Then Fr. Ned and I had the opportunity to meet up with a dear college classmate who now serves as a religious sister with the Servants of the Pierced Hearts, and she gave us a tour of this gorgeous chapel that once belonged to the Italian Royal Family, the House of Savoy. The rest of the day we dedicated to St. Paul, traveling via metro first to the Bas...

The professor’s research “on the orbits of stars at the center of the Milky Way has opened a new approach to studying black holes,” her website states, “and her group is currently focused on using this approach to understand the physics of gravity near a black hole and the role that black holes play in the formation and evolution of galaxies.” The professor earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a doctoral degree in physics from the California Institute of Technology. She has “received numerous honors and awards, including the 2020 Nobel Prize in physics,” the Vatican said. Ghez was born in New York City. In the past, she has cited the Apollo space program as an inspiration for her subsequent astrophysics career.  “I’m defini...

Sex is binary, according to the majority of British scientists in a poll. The difference between sex and gender has become an increasingly incendiary topic as activists, scientists and politicians all debate the terms and the implications they have for policy. But a survey of almost 200 scientists at British universities, conducted by The Telegraph and Censuswide, found 58 per cent of respondents think sex is binary, except in rare cases such as intersex individuals. Less than a third (29 per cent) agreed with the statement “sex is not binary”, while one in eight people (13 per cent) had no views or preferred not to answer. However, almost two thirds of scientists (64 per cent) said gender was fluid, while 22 per cent said gender is binary, and 14 per cent gave no answe...

Laetare, spy games, and the moose penalty Skip to content Pillar subscribers can listen to this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR – The Friday Pillar Post Happy Friday friends, This weekend is Laetare Sunday, as most of you will realize. It’s one of the two days a year when parish priests become acutely alive to the subtle, imaginary distinction between “rose” and “pink” in the color of their vestments — though I’ve long been of the opinion that real men can and should wear pink when the mood takes them. Laetare Sunday, like its Advent equivalent Gaudete Sunday, is a moment when the Church calls us to let a little anticipatory joy into our penitential season. I think it’s a very good thing indeed. In addition to various spiritual disciplines, I’ve myself been using the season (...

COMMENTARY: Regrettably, abortion is now considered something to be celebrated, both by the Catholic president and in Paris. Two developments this week, on both sides of the Atlantic, mark a growing movement to celebrate abortion as a positive good. The Clinton-era slogan of abortion as “safe, legal and rare” has been discarded. Abortion has become something to be celebrated this week in both Washington and Paris. Tonight, at his State of the Union address to Congress, President Joe Biden has invited Kate Cox to sit with First Lady Jill Biden in the balcony. Cox sued in Texas to abort her unborn child, diagnosed with Trisomy 18. While she lost the case, she traveled out of state to obtain the abortion. She will be lauded by Biden as a hero in the balcony. The practice of recognizing “heroe...

His last written words were: ‘I have given all for you, my Lord.’ Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek (1904-84) was an American priest who traveled to the Soviet Union as a missionary, was arrested and imprisoned for 15 years in solitary confinement and labor camps, and spent another eight years there with restricted freedom. He experienced the harsh conditions of Siberia and the brutality of prison life, including the constant threat of starvation. He was returned to the United States in 1963 as part of a prisoner exchange and wrote two books about his experiences, With God in Russia and He Leadeth Me. With God in Russia was the book of his experiences he wrote in 1964 at the request of his superiors; He Leadeth Me was his book of spiritual insights from his time in Russia that he wrote and relea...

Most of us would like to think that if we found ourselves at the center of a potentially world-ending crisis, we would turn into a real-life action hero: Keep a cool head, do what was necessary, save a bunch of lives, and be home in time for dinner.  One of the things such a hero might find themselves doing? Disarming a nuclear bomb. Say a ragtag group of evildoers led by an eccentric but charismatic figure (picture: Nicolas Cage) got a hold of the most powerful weapon ever developed by humankind … which is set to go off … and you’re the only one there to stop it. You’ve got a few basic tools, an expert on the phone, and a sweaty forehead. How’s it likely to pan out? For fairly obvious reasons, a lot of the specific ins and outs of how nuclear weapons work is classified. I...

Pope makes ‘minor’ changes to canonical supreme court Skip to content Pope Francis issued a new motu proprio, Munus tribunalis, promulgated on Feb. 28 but published on March 2, amending the language of eight articles of the proper law of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura.  Palazzo della Cancelleria in Rome. Public domain. The changes were characterized as “minor” by the Vatican’s official media portal, with most of the changes related to terminology and language, bringing the court’s proper law into harmony with the pope’s 2021 constitution on the Roman curia Praedicate Evangelium.  But the changes also highlight some of the important curial and canonical developments of recent years — and continue ongoing debate about the nature and exercise of governing authority ...

There are few aspects of life where you can fail seven out of 10 times and still be considered great at what you do. With a 30 percent score on the MCAT, you wouldn’t get into medical school. You’d likely lose money if you only won 30 percent of your Super Bowl bets. But in baseball, if you get a hit 30 percent of the time you step up to the plate, you might be headed to the Hall of Fame—and that’s because it’s perhaps the most difficult thing to do in any major sport. Ted Williams, for instance, one of the greatest hitters to ever play Major League Baseball, finished his 19-year career playing for the Boston Red Sox with a .344 batting average. That’s a 34 percent success rate, tied for seventh best in the sport’s history. But even he famously said that hitting a baseball is the hardest t...

Lent’s back nine, the laity, and Crazy Skip to content Pillar subscribers can listen to this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR- The Tuesday Pillar Post Hey everybody, JD Flynn here, and you’re reading The Tuesday Pillar Post. I’ve got great news for you: Today is something of a super Tuesday for us, because tomorrow is the mid-point of Lent.  For some of you, this probably means the midway point of some disciplined prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, which may well be already bearing fruit in your lives. But if you’re like me, the mid-point of Lent is a good chance to begin again — to remember that early enthusiasm I had for the Lenten disciplines which have fallen gradually off my radar — and even to ask the Lord for help renewing my commitment to them.  Anyone who lives the...