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Skip to content Although we are halflings, we cannot remain halflings. We must either grow towards the wholeness of holiness or we must shrivel into the wreckage that Pride will make of our lives. Doing nothing is the sin of omission which leads to decay. We can either be Ring-bearers or Ring-wearers. We can either take up our cross or we can crucify ourselves. This week, I met a good friend of mine at a local restaurant, the first time we’d got together since before the onset of the pestilence. He is a Presbyterian pastor and a great lover of the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. It was, in fact, Tolkien who had introduced us to each other, in the sense that we first met at a local Tolkien conference a few years ago. During the course of our conversation, my friend wondered whether Tolkien had som...

In early July, Vladimir Putin toured an Orthodox church in St. Petersburg, piously crossed himself, and lit a candle. Hours before, Russian missiles had attacked the Ukrainian port city of Odessa, demolishing the roof of the historic Orthodox Transfiguration cathedral, setting the building afire and melting some of its gold icons. The dwindling numbers of imbeciles who regard Putin as the savior of Christian civilization might ponder that juxtaposition of events. Shortly after this Russian atrocity, OSV News interviewed Major-Archbishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church and a heroic leader of his people. When I first met the archbishop in 2011, neither of us imagined that, 11 years later, he would figure prominently on a list of those to be assassinated a...

21st Sunday in Ordinary TimeBy Fr. Victor Feltes The great doctor of the Church St. Augustine of Hippo taught that the New Testament is concealed in the Old and that the Old Testament is revealed in the New. We see an example of this in our readings. In the days of the Prophet Isaiah, the Lord chose “Eliakim son of Hilkiah” to become chief steward of the royal house, that is, prime minister for the reigning Davidic king. The Lord declared, “I will place the key of the House of David on Eliakim’s shoulder; when he opens, no one shall shut, when he shuts, no one shall open.” The holder of this office possessed plenary power under the king throughout the kingdom. He reportedly carried a visible key indicating this authority that he would pass on to his successors. In our gospel today, when Je...

In today’s fast-paced and media driven world, where information bombards us from various sources such as TV, computers, cell phones and billboards, it is amazing to realize that the average person processes as much as 74 GB of information every day. This data overload, equivalent to watching 16 movies, continues to increase by approximately 5% each year. Sabine Heim and Andreas Keil, authors of the article “Too Much Information, Too Little Time” highlight this phenomenon. For perspective, just 500 years ago (the 1500’s), a highly educated person would consume approximately 74 GB of information in their entire lifetime. This information would come from books, stories, attending plays, concerts, public executions — a form of entertainment but perhaps not for the highly educated — and other e...

It never fails to encounter the dynamics of a group of educators gathered for their annual professional in-service. The premise behind such an event is to allow the Catholic educator to prepare himself for the upcoming school year’s spiritual, psychological, and educational rigors. Depending on the nature and theme of the in-service, it can either focus on the academic nature of the Catholic educator’s profession or the spiritual. I was warned in a passive jest many years ago by someone I consider one of the best Catholic administrators I have ever met to be careful when you gather a group of teachers and try to teach them. Not asking why, he said, “Some teachers rarely want to be taught by someone else, and if you try, they will simply express a defiant attitude similar to some of t...

In a recent interview, Pope Francis invoked St. Vincent of Lérins in relation to the concept of doctrinal development — especially as a remedy to what the Pope called indietrismo (an attitude of “being backward-looking”) among some Catholics. He has done so previously. The linkage of doctrinal development to Vincent of Lérins may come as a surprise for two reasons. One is that the concept is commonly linked to St. John Henry Newman, and the other is that Vincent is most famous for a quotation that some might take as rejecting doctrinal development. Here are five things to know and share. 1) Who was St. Vincent of Lérins? Vincent of Lérins was a French monk who lived in the early 400s. He belonged to a monastery on the Island of St. Honorat, one of the Lérins Islands off the southern coast ...

After three years of legal battles, in 2019 the Archdiocese of New York, where Sheen was buried after his death in 1979, released Sheen’s body to the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, where Sheen was ordained and first served as a priest. The action allowed Sheen’s cause to continue to move forward, and a date for beatification was set for Sept. 20, 2019 — the 100th anniversary of Sheen’s ordination to the priesthood. However, Gray explained, at that time a waiver to the New York state’s statute of limitations on reporting of abuse cases was issued, allowing cases to go forward regardless of when alleged abuses occurred. Sheen, titular archbishop of Newport, Wales, was bishop of Rochester, New York, from 1966-1969. “It really was not known at the time whether there would be new allegations of w...

Why is this bridge here? This pedestrian bridge crosses I-494 just west of the Minneapolis Airport. It connects Bloomington to Richfield. I drive under it often and I wondered: why is it there? It’s not in an area that is particularly walkable, and it doesn’t connect any establishments that obviously need to be connected. So why was it built? I often have curious thoughts like this, but I dismiss most of them because if I answered all of them I would get nothing else done. But one day I was walking out of a Taco Bell and found myself at the base of the bridge. That only raised MORE questions! Why did the bridge just lead to some grass? Why isn’t there a sidewalk? What is the point? It makes no sense! Obviously I had to walk across it to see where it went. I found that it ...

Once after giving a lecture on friendship I was told I was undermining the hearers ability to have relationships with diverse people. Clarity on this issue is crucial. What had I asserted in my lecture? Aristotle’s principle: deep friendship requires unity of worldview. The longer I live the more I discover just how true this principle is, even if also at times heartbreaking. It is not simply characteristic of our ‘liberal’ age to seek relationships across lines of deeply held differences; often enough we all want to love, live with, and relate to people very different from ourselves. This is natural and good, to the extent that it is possible. Here we must make an all-important distinction between a level of interaction possible even amidst great diversity, and another level where deep fr...

Losing one’s head, and is the pope talking about you? Skip to content Hey everybody, Today is the feast of the beheading of St. John the Baptist.  St. John the Baptist was given the great honor to announce the Lord, and to baptize him —  and the Lord said of him that “among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist.” What a gift, for the Baptist, to be called to such an intimate and important vocation of prophetic witness — even if it meant losing his head.  Salome with the head of John the Baptist by Caravaggio. Of course, St. John the Baptist isn’t the only saint to lose his head for the Lord.  So for your feast day enjoyment, we’ve put together a list for you, of the (eventually) acephalous companions of John the Baptist.  Y...

What Berlin’s archbishop said about same-sex blessings Skip to content A letter from the Catholic Archbishop of Berlin addressing same-sex blessings is causing a stir far beyond the borders of his archdiocese. Archbishop Heiner Koch of Berlin, Germany. @ErzbistumBerlin YouTube channel. In the Aug. 21 letter, Archbishop Heiner Koch assures the Berlin archdiocese’s priests, deacons, and lay pastoral workers that he will not take disciplinary action against them if they bless couples “who cannot or do not want to marry sacramentally.” In the almost 2,000-word letter, he offers a detailed explanation for his decision, which he says he has taken in view of strong disagreements within the archdiocese, which serves around 373,000 Catholics. What does Archbishop Koch say, exactly? What’s the conte...