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Superb Owl, because Super Bowl is copyrighted and I don’t have money – plus I think it is funny. (Nate CC BY-NC 2.0 www.flickr.com/photos/electrobrain/4337714594) In the past few decades, the Super Bowl halftime show has often been inappropriate for kids. Realistically, some have been inappropriate for adults. From the “wardrobe malfunction” in 2004 to the reports of inappropriateness that I saw about this year’s show. Almost every year, I see a bunch of friends talk about how scandalous the halftime show was. However, I want to present a simple way for us, the people, to change it. If you suspect a Super Bowl halftime show will be inappropriate, or it starts being inappropriate, turn off the TV or change the channel. That might seem almost too simplistic but it happened before. The curren...

Aquinas 101 is a YouTube series produced by the Thomistic Institute. These videos seek to introduce viewers to the Christian intellectual tradition through the thought of St. Thomas Aquinas. The following text is from the lesson “Angels and Demons,” in which Fr. James Brent, O.P., discusses St. Thomas’s teaching on angels, both the good and the bad ones. He explains why angels are important, how we know they exist, and whether they exercise influence on creation today. God has revealed to us the reality of angels and demons and by doing so, he is telling us something intelligible and wonderful, something that shows us the grandeur of God and illuminates our experience in many ways. We want to understand the angels as much as possible in order to understand the ways of God and the ways of t...

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Crookston, Minn., Feb 4, 2020 / 12:45 pm (CNA).- The Diocese of Crookston announced Tuesday that the Vatican has ordered additional investigation into the conduct of Bishop Michael Hoeppner, the first U.S. bishop to be investigated through a process developed by Pope Francis last year. Hoeppner will not be permitted to oversee sexual abuse cases in his diocese during the follow-up investigation. “Archbishop Bernard A. Hebda of the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis has recently been authorized by the Congregation for Bishops in Rome, to conduct further investigation” concerning Hoeppner, the Crookston diocese announced Feb. 4. The follow-up investigation is “related to claims that Bishop Michael J. Hoeppner had engaged in ‘acts or omissions intended to interfere with or avoid civil ...

Hoping God would send them a message, the wealthy young men prayerfully consulted the manuscript once for each person of the Holy Trinity. Remarkably, each of the three Gospel passages they landed on contained the exact same command: Give up worldly possessions and follow Christ. Taking the words to heart, St. Francis established a rule of life governing what would become his Order of Friars Minor. The Franciscans embraced radical poverty to draw closer to Christ while also evangelizing others. The same book that inspired St. Francis in 1208 is expected to inspire thousands of others as the Walters Art Museum in Baltimore places it on public display for the first time in 40 years Feb. 1 through May 31. The Latin missal, which contains Gospel readings and prayers used at Mass, underwent a p...

I write these words on the airplane taking me home from my first visit as a bishop ad limina apostolorum (to the threshold of the apostles). This is the pilgrimage, required by canon law of every bishop, to pray at the tombs of St. Peter and St. Paul and to meet personally with the successor of Peter. In an earlier column, I wrote of the extraordinary visit to the tomb of Peter and an even more extraordinary conversation with the Galilean fisherman’s successor, Pope Francis. As I head home, I want to reflect on the sojourn I made with my fellow bishops of Region 11 to the tomb of St. Paul, an encounter that moved me even more than I thought it would. Paul’s sarcophagus is situated in the heart of the magnificent Basilica of St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, so called because it stands on a sit...

Back in 2014, I wrote a book called Defending Marriage: Twelve Arguments for Sanity. I spoke not as an interpreter of Scripture or of the teachings of the Church. My arguments were based on observation, logic, history, anthropology, and culture. As far as I know, no Catholic on the left has taken them up. My arguments included analyses of what we have already done wrong and why, and predictions as to what must happen if we yield to the lures of Sodom. Opponents at that time fell into two groups. By far the larger of the two predicted that nothing would happen. The re-definition of marriage would only extend to a relatively small number of couples a good that was available to everyone else, and that would be no less available to them for being so extended. A development unprecedented in hum...

In the presidential election in October, Alberto Fernández, who heads a coalition of Peronists that includes former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner, handily beat the conservative incumbent, Mauricio Macri. Mr. Macri was a market darling whose “take debt first, reform later” program was felled by financial panic halfway through his four-year term. The pope did not hide his disapproval of Mr. Macri’s efforts. When Mr. Fernández, who was sworn in as president in December, meets the pope at the Vatican on Friday, they are expected to discuss a recurrent problem: how to save Argentina from another debt default. The president hopes to kick off his relationship with the pope with the right foot, even despite his pledge to push for the legalization of abortion. In his first six weeks in o...

Presentation in the Temple – L. Carracci (1605) I want to anticipate Sunday’s feast of the  Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. Let’s consider an event that was glorious in its significance and fulfilment, yet was missed by nearly everyone. Joseph and Mary had brought Jesus to the Temple to present Him there. As they ascended the glorious steps to the Temple Mount, they were fulfilling a requirement of the Law. You are to give over to the LORD the first offspring of every womb. All the firstborn males of your livestock belong to the LORD. Redeem with a lamb every firstborn donkey, but if you do not redeem it, break its neck. Redeem every firstborn among your sons. In days to come, when your son asks you, ‘What does this mean?’ say to him, ‘With a mighty hand the LORD brought us out o...

Sokoto, Nigeria, Feb 1, 2020 / 01:51 pm (CNA).- One of four Nigerian seminarians kidnapped last month has been killed, reportedly by his abductors. The three seminarians kidnapped along with him were released in the weeks following their kidnapping. “With a very heavy heart, I wish to inform you that our dear son, Michael was murdered by the bandits on a date we cannot confirm. He and the wife of a doctor were arbitrarily separated from the group and killed. The Rector identified the corpse this afternoon,” Bishop Matthew Hassan Kukah of Sokoto, Nigeria, said in a statement released Feb. 1. Michael Nnadi was 18 years old. Information about the woman killed with Nnadi is not yet available. Nnadi himself was taken by gunmen from Good Shepherd Seminary in Kaduna, around 10:30 pm on Jan. 8. Wi...

Communist China has accelerated its policy of “sinicization” of religions, with the implementation of a new set of crippling rules which Christian leaders say spell danger for their people, particularly for underground Catholics.The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) had announced last year that revised administrative measures on religions would come to in force from Feb. 1 across the country, covering all religions.  Among other things, the rules stipulate that each religion will be headed by a state-appointed conference, which will function as the supreme decision-making body for the respective religious group. “Does this aim to abolish the traditional church model headed by bishops and replace them with group conferences? If there is no Catholic head for a church, is it ...