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I often struggle with how to think about my possessions, the things I own and how to use them. Today I was struck by something that, if I take it seriously, could radically change my thinking. I am assigned to attend to my things by someone else. And thus these things are only ‘mine’ inasmuch as they are given (indeed leant) for me to care for—according to a plan of the first owner. If true, this really is a game-changer. Sure, I’ve heard this before, even to the point of it seeming quaint. But sometimes—and how grateful I am—something can really strike us anew. The great Ambrose of Milan wrote, “We are not ourselves the masters, but rather the stewards of the property of others.” And the following words are attributed to John Chrysostom: “Therefore, whoever you are, know yourself to be a ...

One year ago today, a grievously unjust law was overturned. The story of how America came to kill, on an industrial scale, human beings in their mothers’ wombs is a terrifying one. Tens of millions of human lives destroyed. The scale of destruction is so great that, after searching for it’s closest analogy in the evil of slavery, we often look to the infanticide practiced by ancient Carthage. Carthage was an empire of extraordinary material success not unlike our own — they valued “productivity,” they were proud of their “practicality.” They loved luxury. At their wealthiest and most decadent, they sacrificed their newborn babies on the foulest altars of false gods. Since 1973, so have we. For a half century, our country has “offered up” tens of millions of vulnerable human lives on a fals...

Blessed Nykyta Budka died in 1949 and was beatified by John Paul II in 2001, along with Blessed Vasyl Velychkovsky and other Ukrainian martyrs. The optional memorial of Blessed Nykyta Budka (and Vasyl Velychkowsky, another Ukrainian Catholic bishop) is celebrated June 27 by dioceses in Canada. As I noted previously, the Church’s task is to produce saints, but there are only so many days available on the Church’s calendar to celebrate them. We collectively honor them all on All Saints Day (Nov. 1), but some saints are more relevant to particular countries or areas as compared to the universal Church.  To understand Blessed Nykyta’s connection to Canada, one should know something about Canadian immigration policy. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the United States drew immigra...

Story Highlights Church attendance down an average four points since before the pandemic Declines in attendance are seen among most key subgroups Churchgoers are mainly back in person, but 5% still attend virtually WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. church attendance has shown a small but noticeable decline compared with what it was before the COVID-19 pandemic. In the four years before the pandemic, 2016 through 2019, an average of 34% of U.S. adults said they had attended church, synagogue, mosque or temple in the past seven days. From 2020 to the present, the average has been 30%, including a 31% reading in a May 1-24 survey. The recent church attendance levels are about 10 percentage points lower than what Gallup measured in 2012 and most prior years. ###Embeddable### The coronavirus pandem...

Warmer weather is here, which means tick season is in full swing. Like other creepy crawlies that feed on our blood and spread disease, ticks can cause a lot of anxiety, which has led to plenty of misinformation regarding how dangerous they are, how they find prey, and the best ways to get rid of them. Before venturing outdoors, read up on the most common myths about ticks. After spotting a tick latched to their body, some people make the problem worse by grabbing a lighter. According to the myth, burning a tick off your skin is the most efficient way to remove it—but Kirby C. Stafford, emeritus scientist of the Connecticut Agricultural Experiment Station, says this thinking is misguided. “Imagine trying to burn something the size of a sesame seed or poppy seed or smaller attached closely ...

Generated by IJG JPEG Library In a disturbing story coming out of the Kansas City archdiocese, The Pillar reports: “It has recently been reported by two priests, having served in three different parishes, that upon their appointment to these parishes they soon discovered the long-term use of wines that were in fact invalid matter for the confection of the Eucharist,” Archbishop Joseph Naumann noted in a May 31 letter obtained by The Pillar. As a result, he wrote, in those parishes, “for any number of years all Masses were invalid and therefore the intentions for which those Masses were offered were not satisfied, including the obligation pastors have to offer Mass for the people.” “This is a gravely serious situation for which we must now petition the Holy See for guidance on restorat...

A case that is potentially the Roe v. Wade of Latin America is now being considered by the Inter-American Court of Human Rights in Costa Rica. The plaintiffs in Beatriz v. El Salvador are asking the court to declare the right to abortion to be an internationally recognized human right. Such a declaration would be a major setback for the right to life on an international scale. The right to abortion is absent from the world’s treaties, conventions, and covenants with the exception of the Maputo Protocol of the African Charter of 2003, where this right was inserted at the behest of its powerful advocates in the West. Until recent years, Latin America has been a region of strong pro-life laws, though in the past decade, Argentina, Chile, Colombia, and other states have liberalized their abort...

“Fear no one,” Jesus says on the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time Year A. Then he gets deadly serious and declares: “Whoever denies me before others, I will deny before my heavenly Father.” Jesus wants us to stop cowering before the power of sin and sophisticated faithlessness, and his Church is listening. A week ago, the Los Angeles Dodgers celebrated the anti-Catholic hate group the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence as “Community Heroes.” The mayors of Los Angeles and Anaheim, along with California legislators, the Los Angeles Times and USA Today celebrated them too. Los Angeles Archbishop José Gomez joined his voice to thousands who protested the event, including recent Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop Robert Barron who said, “Boycott the Dodgers. Let’s pray for the defense of our faith and let’s...