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(OSV News) — President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump, the presumptive Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, participated in the first general election debate of the 2024 cycle on June 27, including on topics like abortion, immigration, foreign policy, and the economy. Biden and Trump, the 46th and 45th presidents respectively, did not shake hands at the start of their first debate in their second election cycle as rivals. Biden at times appeared pale, and his voice — which his camp said was due to a cold — came across as faint, and at times unsteady in his delivery. Trump gave a more robust performance but lacked a clear direction for many of his comments. The debate moderators engaged in no real time fact-checking of the candidates. At one point, Trump accused Bid...

What do USCCB layoffs portend? Skip to content A round of layoffs at the U.S. bishops’ conference has provoked strong reactions among some U.S. Catholics this week, with some observers claiming the moves are ideologically driven, and part of an effort to diminish the social justice work of the USCCB, especially the conference’s Catholic Campaign for Human Development anti-poverty initiative. Bishops gather at the spring 2024 meeting of the U.S. bishops’ conference. Credit: JD Flynn/Pillar Media. The layoffs, first reported Tuesday by Religion News Service, seem to have impacted a significant number of staffers — some reports say as many as 12 — in the department of Justice, Peace, and Human Development, which includes those staffers responsible for administering the CCHD collection.&...

Simple truth, good faith, and wasted effort Skip to content Pillar subscribers can listen to Ed read this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR Happy Friday friends, Tomorrow is the great feast of saints Peter and Paul.  It is, as countless papal homilies over the centuries have reminded us, a feast of the catholicity of the Church — its great universality, encompassing as it does these two very different personalities with two very different missions who ended their ministries in the same city, which itself was the great universal capital of their world’s empire. It’s also, of course, a great feast of the apostolic nature of the Church, linked through time by the unbroken succession of the faith handed on through history by the men chosen to shepherd Christ’s flock in his name. But I li...

Skip to content Jesus came to make us like God. By becoming our brother, the Son of God made us adopted sons of the Father—and this truth is the most shocking of all. The Word of God can shock us. As Dominicans, we immerse ourselves in the Word. We pray the Liturgy of the Hours, reciting and chanting various psalms throughout each day. Frequently in the psalms, we make the prayers of the Old Testament our own. In Psalm 51 we assume the words of David in his plea for God’s mercy. In Psalm 90, we take on the mantle of Moses and ask God to make our work prosper. Our prayers are “first person.” We pray to God, and God hears our prayers. God can help us, so we speak to him. God is worthy of praise, so we praise him. Often it seems routine or expected—but Psalm 50 shocks me. Unlike in other Psal...

Amidst more processions in cities and country roads, a boatercade on the Ohio River, and multicultural expressions of worship, the Pilgrimage continued to witness to the healing and unifying power of the Eucharist this past week. ‍ Marian Route The Marian Route concluded its time in Wisconsin this week, including over 50 stops in the Milwaukee area. One of those stops was especially moving as the procession paused to pray at the Main Street Parade Memorial in Waukesha, where multiple people were killed and others injured when an SUV drove through a parade in 2021. Rev. Patrick Heppe, who was one of the injured, led a time of prayer remembering the victims of the tragedy and praying for healing for the community. Kai Weiss, a Perpetual Pilgrim on the Marian Route, expressed his conce...

By Clement Harrold June 28, 2024 Sacred Scripture does not tell us the names of any particular individuals who are in hell, but it repeatedly affirms that hell is real and people go there. Acts 24:15, for example, reminds us that “there will be a resurrection of both the just and the unjust.” In 2 Thessalonians 1:9, St. Paul warns about those who “shall suffer the punishment of eternal destruction and exclusion from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of his might.” Here St. Paul presents this state of affairs as a future reality, not just a possibility. Likewise, Revelation 20:15, with its apocalyptic vision of the future, describes how “if any one’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Perhaps the most jarring verse of all, however...

With almost 200 people in attendance, the priest celebrated Mass wearing a rainbow stole. NEW YORK CITY — A New York City Catholic church, previously caught up in LGBT controversy, hosted a “Pride Mass” Thursday evening using an altar shrouded with a gay and transgender “pride” flag at a local federal monument with sculptures of two same-sex couples and decorated by dozens of LGBT rainbow flags. The federal monument enshrining a gay bar, The Stonewall Inn, and its surroundings, memorializes the location of a June 28, 1969, LGBT uprising. “When you think about it, the altar servers during the summer go to the amusement park or Yankee Stadium, the senior group will go to the shrine or they’ll go to the slots in Atlantic City. Where is Out at St. Paul supposed to go for their summer pilgrimag...

Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò has been charged with schism and summoned for a proceeding at the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF). In reply to those serious charges, he issued an inflammatory response — Vatican II is a “cancer,” “Bergoglio” is illegitimate — and refused to answer the summons. The Vatican has given him until Friday to respond, either in writing or in person, or he “will be judged in his absence.”  Here are five considerations on the complex issues at play. He Seeks Separation From the Church Like the Br’er Rabbit stories, it seems that Archbishop Viganò wants to be thrown into the briar patch, eager for the disciplinary consequences of his actions. Why he regards the briar patch as welcome territory is a matter for speculation.  It is quite possible to...

It’s a great line, but also one of the more dangerous among G.K. Chesterton‘s famous sayings. “If a thing’s worth doing,” he said, “it’s worth doing badly.” It gives some people an excuse and misdirects others. Though as I say, it’s a great line. It rejects a pernicious modern idea of success, the idea that makes people say “I can’t do that very well, so I shouldn’t even try.” It rebukes the voice (internal or external) that says of something you want to do or feel called to do, “You’ll make a mess of it. Don’t even try. Leave it to the professionals.” We hear people talk like that all the time. Gifted people won’t exercise their gifts because they feel they’ll never be good enough, judged by unrealistic and impractical standards. I thought the line really dumb when I first read it, becaus...

If the Devil can’t make you bad, he will make you busy. –– Lorrie McNickle (repost) My grandfather once wrote me: “Work smarter not harder. Always keep your priorities in mind. Apply Ockham’s razor often to life, shave away the unnecessaries. Better to do a few things well than many things poorly.” Now and again, I examine my life in light of the call to simplicity. A simplicity audit of sorts. Here, simplicity means not just an absence of many things, but a unity of focus; a focus prudently determined by one’s priorities. Which means one must have one’s priorities defined, in mind, and being applied at all times. I developed a custom over the years. A week or so before Advent, I step back and restate to myself my key priorities, which I articulate in a “rule of life.” With this in mind, I...

For the better part of three plus decades the Catholic Church was known in part as a faith community led by the charismatic figures of John Paul II and his deputy, Benedict XVI (Joseph Ratzinger). Their leadership was defined by many things that can be summed up as the authoritative interpreters of Vatican II, which included things like the New Evangelization, clarity in teaching, new ecclesial movements, reform of seminaries, the promulgation of the Catechism of the Catholic Church and the 1983 Code of Canon Law, forceful diplomacy that reshaped the geopolitical world, the empowerment of the laity, and so much more. George Weigel’s monumental biography of John Paul II, A Witness to Hope, is an important reminder of the expansiveness of the pontificate of John Paul II, which continued with...