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Last August, as I began working on my contract position from home, I started researching podcasts I could listen to as I did my work. I stumbled upon an engaging and catechetical podcast titled – The Exorcist Files. The podcast covers the real-life case files of Catholic exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins. After listening to the first episode, I binge-listened this podcast in only 4 days. It was so good. I could not get enough. The first season consists of six case files totaling twelve episodes. In the first season, there are two bonus podcasts. Since then, there have been more bonus podcasts while they work on Season 2 and Fr. Carlos is on the road with the Relic of St. Jude. The team of Ryan Bethea, Fr. Carlos Martins, and the behind-the-scenes crew do a fantastic job presenting these di...

At a time when concern is growing about the rise of Islam, which is threatening to become the primary religion in historically Catholic countries such as France, a phenomenon of fundamental importance cannot be ignored: the exponential growth in conversions of Muslims to Christianity. Marie-Anne and Nicolas are two such converts from Islam who will be baptized this year on Easter. Like many other catechumens who have apostatized from their Muslim faith, their journey is as challenging as it is edifying to others.  It was while accompanying her dying husband from Algeria to a hospital in Belgium in 2015 that Marie-Anne (her baptismal name; her civil name will remain anonymous for security reasons) was overwhelmed by the humanity and compassion shown to her by a Catholic nurse — to the ...

Holy Week and Divine Mercy Sunday, present everyone with particular plenary indulgences that everyone has the opportunity to receive. Here’s how to gain them for yourselves, your loved ones in purgatory, and possibly even for some forgotten soul there. The plenary indulgences that we can receive on every day of Holy Week actually are of two kinds. Certain ones are specific to Holy Week itself. Certain ones we can actually gain anytime, including the Easter Octave.  They’re listed in the Norms and Grants in the official Manual of Indulgences, fourth edition (English edition 2006) the latest and most up-to-date edition of the Manual, or Enchiridion Indulgentiarum, the one that replaces all others. First, let’s look at the plenary indulgences specific to Holy Week. Next, we’ll look at th...

Why a Louisiana excommunication is a canonical ‘hard case’ Skip to content Pillar subscribers can listen to this analysis here: The Pillar TL;DR A Louisiana deacon declared excommunicated this month had formally joined an Anglican parish community, before his bishop declared that he had incurred a formal canonical penalty. Deacon Scott Peyton’s excommunication has garnered national attention, because the deacon’s defection from the Church came after his son was abused by a priest.  Deacon Scott Peyton. Credit: Our Lady Queen of All Saints/Facebook. The excommunication itself has been framed in local media reports as a direct response to the deacon’s criticism of diocesan policies and approaches to sexual abuse allegations. But while that framing does not seem supported by available in...

As St. John Paul II prayed, ‘Dear friends who are ill, may the Holy Virgin present to her Son the offering of your sufferings, in which Christ’s face on the cross is reflected.’ The monarchy is a fixture of life in Britain. We record our history through the reigns of monarchs; we prefix, where appropriate, our public institutions with a royal title; and we follow the lives of prominent members of the royal family with genuine affection, a sense of pride, and sometimes almost-fanatical interest. The death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II left us all feeling bereft, and the formal proclamation of King Charles III had a reassuring note of formality and unchanging tradition. I happened to watch it from a bridge across the Thames, accompanied by seminarians from the Westminster diocesan semina...

“It will be a difficult Easter,” Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa told Italian television last week as he offered a grim assessment of the worsening humanitarian crisis in war-torn Gaza. Calling on the international community to quickly halt the Israel-Hamas war, he said he was thinking of the “loneliness of Jesus in Gethsemane, which is now shared by all of us.” Pizzaballa had been cardinal for just a week when Hamas launched its devastating attacks in southern Israel last October, plunging the region — and the Italian-born Latin patriarch of Jerusalem — into a new phase of a conflict he knows only too well. Having planned to stay in Rome for the duration of the Synod on Synodality assembly in October, the Franciscan patriarch was forced to abruptly return to the Holy Land, his home for t...

I went to Rome for a short trip largely to offer a little moral support for friends who were doing something beautiful for the life of the Church. While visiting with one of them who lives there a day or so before the event, I got sick. Non-contagious sick, but a catalyst for much humility. So, I was largely locked in my room — in Rome — for a day and change. I was annoyed with myself for not thinking this through better — as if I could have known this would happen. Just what you fly across the Atlantic for! The moment I started to feel better, I had grand plans, despite not having eaten and probably being dehydrated. I would go to St. Peter’s and other beloved places. My friend wisely insisted I did not. He knew I was not ready (and my doctor agreed). So I stuck around and tried to pray a...

I went to Rome for a short trip largely to offer a little moral support for friends who were doing something beautiful for the life of the Church. While visiting with one of them who lives there a day or so before the event, I got sick. Non-contagious sick, but a catalyst for much humility. So, I was largely locked in my room — in Rome — for a day and change. I was annoyed with myself for not thinking this through better — as if I could have known this would happen. Just what you fly across the Atlantic for! The moment I started to feel better, I had grand plans, despite not having eaten and probably being dehydrated. I would go to St. Peter’s and other beloved places. My friend wisely insisted I did not. He knew I was not ready (and my doctor agreed). So I stuck around and tried to pray a...

The Christian story started very simply: a mother delivered her baby, truly God and truly man, amid the squalor of straw and livestock. Such humble beginnings begat a new vision of motherhood that became the archetype for the Church — Holy Mother Church. Embraced by all Christians for centuries, ecclesial motherhood was cast in art, music, poetry, and culture. Even the word for church is feminine in the romance languages. Architecturally, the wide-reaching and iconic arms of Saint Peter’s Square in Rome remind Christians that the Church is meant to be home, nurturer, comforter, and nourisher to us all. She is our mother. Since Eve, motherhood has been a gift unique to women. Historically, it was understood as a wide category that included the wise grandmother, the religious sister, th...