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They canceled Easter. Is Christmas next?” Matthew Hennessey asked this question in the Wall Street Journal on December 8. Lockdown regulations did indeed cancel Christmas gatherings and festivities for many. We bishops have been hearing variations on Hennessey’s cry from our people as we approach another pandemic-dominated Lent, barely a month away. At Easter last year, the coronavirus was still a relatively new phenomenon. Not much was known about it. As painful as it was at the time, temporarily closing the doors to our churches seemed the prudent thing to do. Many people found this traumatic, including me. I remember when I first had to lock the doors of our cathedral in San Francisco and livestream the Mass. The cathedral doors are made of glass. I could see people walk up, ...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Jan 12, 2021 The US Supreme Court has issued a very clear ruling that government officials cannot impose special restrictions on religious worship under Covid-emergency rules. If churches are subject to restrictions, the same restrictions must apply to other institutions; otherwise the rules are prima facie indications of discrimination against religion, which is forbidden by the First Amendment. This ruling, the Supreme Court has also clarified, must be applied by all federal courts. So why did a federal court in Massachusetts reject a Catholic layman’s legal challenge to restrictions on worship? The court ruling explained: “There is no evidence, however, that the Archdiocese [of Boston] instituted its protocols only because of Gover...

“A light shines in the darkness, and the darkness will not overcome it.” John 1:5 By Carrie Gress During several long stays in Poland, I heard many stories about life under communism. Fascinated by these first-hand accounts, it was hard to wrap my mind around what my friends had lived through. One young man had his family estate divided up by the government: the parents and son were left the kitchen and a bedroom, while strangers from another part of Poland were moved into other parts of the house to make a new home. I was told about the preciousness of a can of coke. Parents made huge sacrifices from their $20 a month salaries to gift their children just one, costing $1. After having been sipped and savored to the very end, the empty cans were cleaned and turned into a treasur...

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“If I call myself a Catholic,” says celebrity chef Deacon Lou Aaron, “I need to live like a Catholic.” A resident of Boise, Idaho, Chef Lou Aaron may be familiar to folks who watch Guy Fieri’s Food Network shows, “Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives,” or “Guy’s Grocery Games.” Or, if you live near Boise, you can watch his cooking spots on NBC affiliate KTVB-TV. You can also browse the internet and see him on Pinterest. No wonder he has created a following — he is the creative chef who owns the “Famous Westside Drive-In” that features an Idaho favorite, the Idaho Finger Steaks. Chef Aaron was raised in a Catholic family, attended 12 years of Catholic school, and as a youth, served as an altar boy. But, as so many youths do, after high school, he left the faith. As he said, “I became a man of the ea...

“Son of Man” was a common expression in the Old Testament for “man” or “mankind”, rendered either ben-enosh [“son of man”] or ben-adam [“son of Adam”]. It was the phrase with which God addressed the prophet Ezekiel over 90 times: The voice said to me: Son of man, stand up! I wish to speak to you ( Ez 2:1). Often the phrase had a depreciating quality, highlighting human weakness in comparison to God’s strength; from Psalm 8: When I see your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and stars that you set in place—What is man that you are mindful of him, and a son of man that you care for him? (vss. 4-5). From the prophet Isaiah: I, it is I who comfort you. Can you then fear mortals who die, human beings [“sons of men”] who are just grass (51:12). It is curious then that “Son of Man” was J...

One of the mercies of the (first) coronavirus pandemic year is I did not spend much time near a television. Of course, I watched videos on my phone off and on—my job as a conservative journalist, commentator and activist does require paying attention to the world. But I forced myself into discipline about avoiding it. (Except for the pope’s livestreamed Masses, which were a bit of a lifeline while churches were closed to the public.) Honestly, over the last decade or so, my taste for TV has waned. There is so much of life to live and it is stunningly short. Especially in a year with such death, I was hard-pressed to get back into it. I remember when people thought CNN’s “Crossfire” was combative. Now all of life feels like you are in the political crossfire. You should know that I was not ...

On Sunday, Jan. 10, the internet was abuzz with false reports of an overnight blackout at the Vatican, accompanied by a series of claims concerning Pope Francis, the Italian police, and the FBI. Over the weekend, false claims regarding the Vatican and Pope Francis were widely shared by conspiracy theorists, generating bewilderment and concern among Catholics around the world. What happened? On Jan. 10, a website called the Conservative Beaver published a report headlined “VATICAN BLACKOUT: Pope arrested on 80 count indictment for Child Trafficking, Fraud.” The article was widely shared on Twitter and triggered a spike in Google searches for the term “Vatican blackout.” What do we know about the Conservative Beaver website? The website describes itself as “a conservative news outlet” that h...

Today’s feast of the Baptism of the Lord provides a moment to reflect not only on the Lord’s baptism, but also on our own. For in an extended sense, when Christ is baptized, so are we, for we are members of His body. As Christ enters the water, He makes holy the water that will baptize us. He enters the water and we follow. And in these waters He acquires gifts to give us, as we shall see below. Why was Jesus baptized? It has been asked in every generation why Christ sought baptism. The baptism of John surely pointed to sin, of which Christ  had none. The question has been well answered by the Father and many others. In effect, Christ descended into those waters; He troubled those waters, stirring them up to make them holy for our sakes. And by this descent, which points to the P...

ROME – My personal bucket list became one item shorter on Thursday, when legendary Dodgers manager and lifelong Catholic Tommy Lasorda died at the age of 93. He suffered a heart attack at his home in Fullerton, California, and was transported to a nearby hospital where he passed away. For decades I’ve promised myself that someday I’d interview Lasorda about the intersection between Catholicism and baseball, but, as CCR famously taught us, “someday never comes.” Alas, now I’ll never have the chance – though it is some consolation knowing that Lasorda went to his rest just two months after watching his beloved Dodgers win their first World Series since he was the manager. My fascination with Lasorda wasn’t just that he was a practicing Catholic who, throughout his career, would arrange for a...

“We fervently pray for peace and for God’s protection over our country, our lawmakers, and all those in harm’s way this terrible day.” Editor’s Note: This article will be updated as further statements are released. Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila (Denver): “Let us pray for our country that peace and civility may reign in this time of transition! Jesus is the way to true peace, a peace no one can take away. Let us be his instruments of peace!” Archbishop Salvatore J. Cordileone (San Francisco): “To attack the U.S. Capitol to express your fear that democracy has been denied is wrong, and also counterproductive. Doubts about free and fair elections cannot be redressed by violence against democratic institutions. “To the deaths from a pandemic, and destruction wreaked on people’s livelihoods...

In the summer of 2020, a solitary priest carried a monstrance containing the Sacred Host through deserted village streets in a remote part of Wales. It was a Corpus Christi procession like none other.  The priest who carried the Body of Christ to his parishioners during 2020’s feast of Corpus Christi was Father Matt Roche-Saunders, who was ordained less than two years ago.  The Register spoke to him Dec. 29, 2020, about why he decided to take the Eucharist to the empty streets amid the COVID-19 lockdown.  “I was so sad that for Corpus Christi there would be no Eucharistic procession and no gathering for the Mass. But I felt prompted by the Lord to make use of a Welsh legal concession that allowed people to meet in their gardens. I decided to offer families the opportunity to...