This incredible story came to me first via family. St. Joseph Parish in Maumee, Ohio posted this note to their Facebook page on Wednesday (it has already been viewed and shared thousands of times since then): As many of you know, our seminarian Deacon Scott Carroll has been battling cancer for some time. Although Scott [...]
Yesterday’s violence in Boston was senselessness enough; in the context of the last months and years, it feels like piling on. We are weary now in a way we weren’t on, say, September 10, 2001 (not to over-stretch comparisons). Some days it seems like a great levee is about to break and all the darkness that civilization [...]
How do you talk to people who think you hate them? That was the question top Catholic thinkers were discussing at Benedictine College last weekend, and the three answers they came up with were simple, powerful and important. Leave aside that it is crazy for them to think we hate them. People hate smoking but [...]
I recently caught an episode of EWTN’s “Catholicism on Campus” where the subject was economics and a point was made briefly that I think bears reflection. It is said that the wise know that they don’t know everything, which not only emphasizes the importance of humility but can also cause people to sneer suspiciously at [...]
Being religious is not cool. In fact, it’s downright uncool. We learned that from a really profound (but really not) video that went viral a year or so ago, right around the same time some other things became really uncool – like asking people to pay for their own birth control, or thinking men [...]
Men who spend a lot of time around animals tend to pick up certain qualities of those animals. Smells, in particular, can cling rather stubbornly. Take an pig farmer, for example. (We’ll call him “Finn.”) Should Finn wish to woo a lady (we’ll call her “Maggie”) he might consider using some fruity soaps to mask [...]
If BuzzFeed is any guide to where our culture is at, we’re in bad shape. The website shamelessly seeks out as many clicks as possible by posting funny memes, cat pictures (lots of cat pictures) and important cultural contributions such as “22 Celebrities You Probably Didn’t Realize Were the Same Age” (not kidding). On any [...]
Over at First Things I have an article in defense of priestly celibacy. Not surprisingly, many commentators on the left took the occasion of Benedict’s resignation to claim that celibacy is contrary to nature, a cause of priestly misconduct, and should be scrapped. More surprisingly, this argument was also pressed from the American right, notably [...]
“Behold, a faithful and prudent steward, whom the Lord set over his household.” – Entrance Antiphon, Joseph, Spouse of Mary, March 19 Dear Benedict, Emeritus Pontiff; There is so much to thank you for after your decades of service to the Church, but today, on your name day, the feast of St. Joseph, we owe [...]
We are used to Popes who transcend categories like “liberal” and “conservative.” (It almost happens naturally.) Pope Francis seems a little bit different. He seems positively liberal in many of his actions and he seems hardcore conservative in many of his statements. He’s a conservative liberal. I hope he will unite the best of both. [...]
