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Greetings from Wichita, Kansas, where I am in town — as I frequently am — to visit family and to be tempted into buying stacks of books (and icons) at the amazing Eighth Day Books (see this 2015 New York Times feature). This time around, I am one of the speakers at the 10th annual Inklings Festival at the Eighth Day Institute. The title of my talk: “The Scariest Five Chapters in the Work of C. S. Lewis.” Anyone want to guess which five chapters I will be discussing? Yes, they are five chapters in the same book. If you happen to be cruising across the High Plains, please drop by. The Inklings pub crawl is worth the effort, all by itself. Anyway, down to business. I am still thinking about that post earlier this week: “Hollywood Christians: A large congregation?” That made me think about an ...

‘Dilexit nos’: A brief guide for busy readers Skip to content Pope Francis published the fourth encyclical of his so far 11-year pontificate Thursday. A Sacred Heart of Jesus statue in Alsace, France. © Ralph Hammann – Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0). The 141-page, 28,000-word Dilexit nos (“He loved us”) follows 2013’s Lumen fidei (co-written with Benedict XVI), 2015’s Laudato si’, and 2020’s Fratelli tutti. The new encyclical’s incipit, or opening phrase, is drawn from Romans 8:37, in which St. Paul says Christians can overcome every adversity “through him who loved us.” What’s the genesis of the new encyclical, dedicated to “the human and divine love of the Heart of Jesus Christ”? And what does it say? Here’s a brief guide for busy readers. Share What’s the background? Pope Franci...

By Carrie Gress An article caught my eye this week at Food & Wine explaining how long-shuttered scotch distilleries are reopening. The “ghost distilleries” that dot the untamed Scottish countryside are firing up their stills again and producing the liquid gold that never quite went out of style. Despite shuttering in the 70s, labels like Port Ellen and Brora, saw their reputations increase instead of erased. Labels long believed to be unprofitable are now making a comeback. There is something similar happening in the Catholic Church. We are slowly figuring out that it is okay to get involved again in the culture. The Church isn’t merely papal prognostications, brick and mortar church buildings, or daily homilies. The faith, when lived properly, splashes...

By Phil Lawler ( bio – articles – email ) | Oct 17, 2024 Blame the Russians. Blame the Americans. Blame the Muslims. In a lengthy essay featured by the Vatican newspaper L’Osservatore Romano Father (soon to be Cardinal) Timothy Radcliffe strives mightily to understand why so many African bishops resist accepting homosexuality. He has a few theories: African bishops are under intense pressure from Evangelicals, with American money; from Russian Orthodox, with Russian money; and from Muslims, with money from the rich Gulf countries. In this characteristically quirky essay, Father Radcliffe repeatedly cites the leadership of Pope Francis, who wants the Church to accept everyone: “Todos, todos, todos.” But he does not pay attention to the Pope’s oft-expressed concern that the peopl...

Live from Rome, it’s synodality! Skip to content Pillar subscribers can listen to this Pillar Post here: The Pillar TL;DR Hey everybody, Greetings from the Vatican press office, where I arrived this morning to cover the next 10 days of the Vatican’s second session of the final stage synod on synodality. 😉 The Pillar’s Edgar Beltran has been here for the first fortnight of this month’s synod on synodality, and when I depart next week, Ed. Condon will be here to cover the final few days. I’ve got the middle stretch, in which — as one synod participant has put it to me already — “nothing’s left but the elephants and the brooms.” An October 15 press conference at the synod on synodality. Credit: JD Flynn/The Pillar By this, I think my colorful correspondent meant that much of the talking has a...

How we bury our dead is a crucial part of life. We have gotten away from the wise practices of our ancestors. If how they did burial was largely out of necessity, we might still discover just how important those practices are—how much we really need them today. And we can choose them, at least some of them, again. The day we buried my father some years ago was one of the most important days of my life. Here is a brief retelling of it and a few reflections that it occasioned. I hope many others might receive, or give, such a gift. It was all about the earth. Opening it, placing something it, and closing it. Like planting a seed. We started with the assumption that the more we did with our own hands the better. We knew that my father had enough hearty pall-bearers that we could actually carr...

Neutrality and Nobility: How the Order of Malta runs its diplomatic service Skip to content The Sovereign Military Order of Malta has, for 900 years, existed in a unique legal space. Founded as a hospitaller order of noble knights during the middle ages, it eventually found itself as the sovereign rulers of various territories, including the islands of Rhoades and of Malta, finally losing control of its namesake territory during the Napoleonic Wars. HE Riccardo Paternò di Montecupo, Grand Chancellor of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta, at the United Nations. Image via Order of Malta. By the 19th century, the knights, now headquartered in Italy, were still recognized by various European powers – including the papacy – as a sovereign entity, albeit without a territory to gov...

Examiners: St. Teresa of Avila must have lived with a lot of pain As Aleteia reported earlier this year, the largest part of the remains of St. Teresa of Avila have been exhumed for analysis and study. The saint’s body remains in the state that it was in the last time it was exhumed, in the early 1900s. Initial findings from these analyses have been reported in an interview with two radiographers, José Antonio Ruiz de Alegría and Fernando de Pablo Arranz, in El Debate. They noted that the last time the remains were exhumed in 1914, Pope Pius X’s subsequent death impeded plans for an in-depth study. Now, 110 years later, technology makes us capable of discovering much that had been lost to history. The examiners describe her body as “mummified” more than “literally incorrupt.” Something inc...

The Cambridge historian Richard Rex has noted that the first great crisis in Christianity was over the nature of the Trinity, especially over the nature of Christ, hence the early Christological heresies. The second great crisis, associated with the Reformation, was over the nature of the Church. This entailed the Protestant attack on sacramentality and the sacred hierarchy. The third great crisis, Rex observes, the one we are enduring today, is over the nature of the human person. Here the concrete issues revolve around the fact of sexual difference. Does the difference between masculinity and femininity have any theological significance? This overview of the history of ecclesial crises is very perceptive but one might add that within the Catholic Church today the crisis is not confined t...

July 17, 1781, in Yuma, Arizona, was, like virtually all July days along the lower Colorado River, filled with bright sunshine and extreme heat. Soon it also would be filled with the screams of warriors, the musket shots of soldiers, and the moans of the dying.  The Quechan Indians had risen up against the Spaniards among them. Within four days, 131 Spanish would be dead, including four Franciscan missionaries: Fathers Francisco Garcés, Juan Antonio de Barreneche, José Matías Moreno and Juan Díaz. By 1781, Quechan hostility toward the Spanish had been rising for several years. But at first, thanks largely to the earnest, likable and peaceable Father Garcés, there had been a golden period of amity and goodwill. Garcés first arrived at Yuma in August 1771. As the pastor at lonely and hi...

What Is Necrology A necrology refers to a list or record of individuals who have died, especially within a specific community, organization, or during a particular time period. In the context of the Church, religious orders will keep necrologies to record the anniversary of the death of the members of the Order. This gives the community the opportunity to remember to pray for the repose of the soul of its members – even members who died long before the current members were alive. In so doing, we are performing a spiritual work of mercy for souls. Why Make A Necrology While we often think of praying for the dead in the month of November, all year we have ample opportunities to pray for the souls of the departed. Through almsgiving, penance, and fasting done with the intention of freeing sou...