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[embedded content] From Preston Reid.

This is so inspiring! 🙌 Catholic theologian Scott Hahn recently spoke with ChurchPOP English editor Jacqueline Burkepile about his latest book, Hope to Die: The Christian Meaning of Death and the Resurrection of the Body. The founder of the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology provides hope, especially during this coronavirus pandemic. He explains why we should not fear of death, and touches on God’s presence during this time of crisis. “The greatest miracle that Christ could do is not simply to help us discover a vaccine and a cure, but to cure us of our own disordered fear of suffering and dying. This disordered fear of losing natural life, when in fact, what we ought to fear the loss of supernatural life. “We ought to fear offending God our loving Father, more than offending my...

The incident in northern Italy is one of a number of cases where authorities have overstepped applying the government’s lockdown rules, according to critics. ROME — An attempt by Italian police to halt a Mass in a northern Italian church because it appeared to be violating state-decreed lockdown rules has led to criticism of heavy-handedness on the Catholic Church by overzealous civil authorities. Captured on video and published by local newspaper Cremona Oggi, as Father Lino Viola was celebrating Mass on Divine Mercy Sunday in the church of San Pietro Apostolo in Soncino in the province of Cremona — one of the areas hardest-hit by the coronavirus — a member of the Carabinieri, Italy’s military police, entered the church before the canon and ordered the Mass to stop. Father Viola, 80, had ...

Eastertime rejoices in life, when even things as old as the world are made new again. It is at this time of resurrection that Catholics may also remember those who have passed away in the hope of rising again, and especially those whose memory might be seasoned with the brightness they brought to life by their lives—how they participated in Christ’s work to make all things new. A little man from Connecticut who brought immense joy to our children by his bright and beautiful gifts is deserving of a thought and a prayer this Easter. Thomas Anthony “Tomie” dePaola, the celebrated American author and illustrator, died on March 30 at the age of 85, having suffered a fall in the barn that served as his studio. There are very few children’s book artists and authors who are immediately recognizabl...

Catholics are understandably unsettled, even angry over the Church’s response to COVID-19. Although the Church (especially the clergy) is divided on it, we need to approach the question with charity. It does no good to accuse advocates of maintaining the sacramental life of such things as pretentiousness, libertarianism, disregard for science, recklessness, individualism, or narcissism. All interlocutors need to make proper distinctions in the interest of clarity, fairness, and service to the Church. We all have a moral obligation to make prudent efforts to protect the good of human life. No doubt there are natural law justifications for the Church’s response to this pandemic—the suspension of public Masses and, in some dioceses, the suspension of sacraments. But the bigger picture should ...

[embedded content] “But that’s a priceless Steinway!” “Not anymore.”

Just like how Navy planes have vast instrumented ranges for aerial wargames, submarines have one too, and it is arguably even more impressive.  USN The Bahamas are home to white beaches, sun-scorched tourists, towering cruise ships, and the United States Navy’s most advanced weapons and sensor testing range. Beneath the revealing party goers dancing on the lido deck, submarines sail quietly through the Northeast Providence Channel into a secure area called the Atlantic Undersea Test and Evaluation Center, or AUTEC.  Just like how Navy aircraft fight mock aerial wars over instrumented ranges where each player’s every move is tracked, those that deal in the shadowy art of submarine and anti-submarine warfare have a similar place in AUTEC. Here the Navy develops submarine-related ta...

This is a difficult time for everyone. Our routine has suddenly slowed down and completely changed, and those who haven’t been able to self-isolate are afraid of being infected by the coronavirus. We can’t treat this as an irrational fear — it’s a real fear that can’t be ignored. Strategies of self-consolation (such as deep breathing and repeating over and over again that everything will be all right) often stop working as we get to know cases of people close to us who suffer from COVID-19, and may even be losing family and friends to it. The news reminds us of this possibility constantly, and spending time at home makes our compulsion to consume information soar. Can we control our emotions during this time? And most importantly, how can we grow through these circumstance? In order to und...

Sr. Maria Faustina Kowalska died at the age of 33 in 1938, misunderstood by most of the religious sisters with whom she had lived her life.  They appreciated her kindness, hard work, and faithfulness to their rule of life, but many of her fellow religious also thought that she was delusional and tormented.  Indeed, she claimed to have received several revelations from the Lord, sometimes involving direct commands, all of which concerned his divine mercy.  She believed that she was entrusted with the mission of making the Lord’s mercy known.   Through living a life of sacrificial love for the Lord, the absurdity of Sr. Faustina’s claim has become an occasion of hope for the world. To accomplish this mission, she was humbly faithful to the promptings of the Lord even in t...

If you are in the state of sanctifying grace, you and God are friends. The whole world finds itself in a frantic search for a defense against Covid-19. Some recommend such preventative “medicine” as exercise, rest, nutrition, hydration, fresh air, sunlight, vitamins and minerals. Others suggest masks and gloves. Some say hydroxychloroquine is the answer. (Though some physicians are so convinced that hydroxychloroquine is effective against Covid-19 that they are going beyond FDA regulations to prescribe it, many media personalities insist that hydroxychloroquine is not effective — using the powerful logic that Donald Trump suggested that it might be). Though the response to Covid-19 has brought out the worst in some people, it has nevertheless illustrated a basic truth: people want to live....

The depiction in Nosferatu of the upending of a settled way of life by contagion has more than a contemporary resonance. At the center of the 1922 film Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror are scenes of a plague, which has been visited upon a hitherto prosperous and relatively happy German community. The bringers of that plague are the rats that accompany the vampire Count Orlok from his lair in Transylvania. Soon, everyday life in the fictional town of Wisborg is transformed by a never-ending parade of coffin-bearers led by frock-coated and solemn-faced undertakers. Today, a mysterious disease has visited us. Therefore, the depiction in Nosferatu of the upending of a settled way of life by contagion has more than a contemporary resonance. Nosferatu: A Symphony of Horror is the earliest cinemat...

Even if know that Easter is the most important feast of the liturgical year, Christmas still seems like a much bigger deal. Christmas is known for its cheer–singing, treats, presents, fires, and family–but we’re not quite sure how to celebrate Easter. Pascha (the feast’s Latin name) focuses like the original Passover on being spared of death and beginning a new life. The feast happens in Spring (where the word Easter comes from) as a natural sign that we should begin again. All the penances of Lent should culminate in deep joy, not in going back to our old ways, but in living with a new freedom. It’s a deeper joy than Christmas, even if we don’t have the customs to express it any longer. I filmed a virtual theology on tap talk this last week focused on Easter shows us that God is not dead ...