Left

COMMENTARY: In his last years of life, the Australian prelate became one of the universal Church’s most prominent champions for doctrinal orthodoxy, a mantle others will need to carry forward following his departure. Immediate reflections following the shocking death of Cardinal George Pell have focused on the Australian prelate’s heroic endurance of false accusations of sexual abuse. And rightfully so.  Cardinal Pell’s fortitude in the face of such ideologically motivated injustices, which included 404 days of solitary confinement in a Melbourne prison cell before the charges were quashed by the Australian High Court in April 2020, were an inspiration to Catholics across the world, a compelling example of faithfully enduring the kind of persecution that Christ foretold those who foll...

In April 2020, a Vatican judge officially closed the case, which had been reopened the previous year after members of Orlandi’s family received a tip that the girl’s remains could be in a Vatican cemetery. That investigation ultimately authorized the opening of two tombs in the cemetery of the Teutonic College, which sits on Vatican-owned property adjacent to the city-state; those graves were found to be completely empty, and in an unexpected twist, Vatican officials discovered “thousands” of human bones — not Orlandi’s — in a previously unknown ossuary nearby.  Scientific tests carried out in July 2019 on bone fragments found in connection to the investigation revealed the bones to be too old to be Orlandi’s remains, according to Vatican statements at the time. The Vat...

This Wednesday, the House of Representatives is scheduled to vote on the Born-Alive Abortion Survivors Protection Act. Please act now to tell your representative to vote “Yes” on this bill. It is a horrific reality in this country that children who are fully born and living after a failed abortion can in many instances be left to die without medical attention and basic needs met. The Born-Alive Survivors Protection Act would require health care professionals to offer the same level of medical care to such children as would be appropriate for a premature baby born at the same age. Please make your voice heard and ask Congress to help save these vulnerable survivors among us. [Guidelines:  Messages in your own words can be more effective. Please consider customizing the Message Body wit...

Free speech is under increasing attack in Canada. Over the past decade, ideologically emboldened political leaders, activists, and professional regulators have narrowed the field of allowable discourse and sought to punish any expression that ventures outside it. The latest threat to free speech in Canada involves an Ontario College of Psychologists (OCP) investigation of clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson for allegedly harming various individuals for his public comments on Twitter and The Joe Rogan Experience podcast. Examples of Peterson’s supposed crimes on social media include calling for an end to unscientific, discriminatory vaccine mandates, retweeting Canada’s Conservative Party leader Pierre Poilievre, and lambasting Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau. One complainant submi...

The “surplus population” is, in fact, the population that the Constitution is made to protect. What do Ebenezer Scrooge and Planned Parenthood have in common? The fundamental answer to this question is more than a sentimental appeal to “the Christmas spirit” or a “cheap-shot” at the abortion industry. The answer is found in the writings of the British Anglican Reverend, Thomas Malthus. In 1798, Malthus wrote “An Essay on the Principle of Population” and worked and reworked the core ideas of this piece over the next several years. He never fundamentally changed from his one big thought: human population increases exponentially while food only increases linearly. Thus, there will always be a tendency in the human race for population to “overpower” food; hence there will be, in the words of S...

This is a still from the “Revolution of the Heart: The Dorothy Day Story,” a film by Martin Doblmeier. (CNS photo/courtesy Journey Films) They had gotten a telegram from the Communist Party’s newspaper just before Christmas asking for their help, Dorothy Day wrote in her column in the January 1937 issue of Catholic Worker. She took the chance to challenge their political mind with the Christian insight. The Daily Worker held the hard Marxist idea that political needs determine what is true and false. The political needs were mainly those of the Soviet Union, then run by Joseph Stalin, who had only a few years before finished his near-genocidal war on the Ukrainian people. At the time the editor telegraphed, the newspaper proclaimed, with the rest of the world’s communist press,...

“If you’re feeling helpless in your vocation, if you’re feeling like you’re resenting parenthood or marriage, family life — we want you to be able to find hope; to be able to have some practical tools for getting yourself out of that rut and to be able to experience the joy of your vocation and the love of God — and experience God’s peace in your home. We really hope that our book accomplishes that for fellow Catholic parents,” said Debbie Cowden, co-author with her husband, David, of “The Prayer Book for Tired Parents: Practical Ways to Grow in Love of God and Get Your Family to Heaven” (Sophia Institute Press).  Debbie Cowden is senior digital media specialist at EWTN. The Cowdens live in Ohio with their three young children. Learn mor...

In January 2019, the Korean-flagged fishing vessel Oyang 77 sailed south toward international waters off Argentina. The vessel had a known history of nefarious activities, including underreporting its catch and illegally dumping low-value fish to make room in its hold for more lucrative catch. At 2 a.m. on Jan. 10, the Oyang 77 turned off its location transponder at the edge of Argentina’s exclusive economic zone – a political boundary that divides Argentina’s national waters from international waters, or the high seas. At 9 p.m. on Jan. 11, the Oyang 77 turned its transponder back on and reappeared on the high seas. For the 19 hours when the ship was dark, no information was available about where it had gone or what it did. In a recent study, I worked with colleagues at Global...

The “reasonableness of faith” is what Pope Benedict XVI taught to an age hostile to faith and lacking confidence in reason.  In his “Spiritual Testament,” written in 2006 and released upon his death, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote about faith, which was to be expected, but in a way unusual for a final testament. He desired that, after his death, the world hear one more time that the faith was reasonable and that philosophical and scientific approaches that claimed otherwise were themselves deficient in their reasoning.  In Life and Death: Faith! Benedict, the consummate scholar, makes an argument from the grave in his  “Spiritual Testament”: “It often seems that science — the natural sciences on the one hand and historical research (especially exegesis of Sacred Scripture)...

Soon after the funeral of Pope Benedict XVI, a video began circulating online, which appeared to show a man being denied Holy Communion at the Mass, as he knelt before a priest distributing the Eucharist and attempted to receive on the tongue. The video was apparently an excerpt from Vatican Media’s own broadcast of the funeral. And, of course, the video is without sound or context — any possible extenuating circumstances or additional information is not available to those who view it. There is only a story told in a few seconds of video — a man kneels, removes the hood of jacket, a priest says something to him and pulls back the sacred host, the man seemingly attempts again to receive it as he rises from the ground, and the priest seems to rebuke him. The man, and a woman behind him in li...

As Christmas approached last year, astronomers and space fans around the globe gathered to watch the much-anticipated launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. Though a wondrous piece of engineering, the telescope was not without its controversies — from being way over budget and behind schedule to being named after a former NASA administrator who has been accused of homophobia.  Despite the debates over the telescope’s naming and history, one thing has become abundantly clear this year — the scientific ability of JWST is remarkable. Beginning its science operations in July 2022, it has already allowed astronomers to get new views and uncover mysteries about a huge range of space topics.  The most pressing aim of JWST is one of the most ambitious projects in the recent history of...