The Catholic Thing

By Robert Royal It's often been said, though perhaps not often enough lately, that the Devil can cite Scripture for his purposes. Whether the Evil One is operative in many of the current approaches to Scripture – in university departments and some Church circles – is a question best left to true authorities and even exorcists. But there's no question that the people who wrote Final Report of Study Group Number 9: Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues, which appeared just last week, were engaged in serial Scriptural abuse. Admittedly, they're not alone. A good deal of current Scripture scholarship seems like the work of a lawyer looking for legal loopholes – on behalf of the usual "emerging" subjects: LGBTs, women's ordinations, suicidal concessions to postmodern "paradigms." A long line of doctors, martyrs, confessors, saints, spiritual adepts, holy men and women, ordinary Catholics, and popes – to say nothing of the Apostles and Early Church Fathers – would not even have conceded that such subjects are "controversial" – the original area that the study group was supposed to be considering. Let alone "emerging." Homosexuality, priestesses, and heterodox "paradigms" were quite common in the pagan world during the early Christian centuries. None of that "emerged" into the Church's life at the time. They were all non-starters for followers of "the Way." Which makes the outlandish way that the recent report handles Scripture and tradition so obviously nonsensical, out of a clumsily "contextualized" desire to produce a predetermined outcome, whether it accords with Christian revelation or even verifiable reality. The report purports to believe that there is precedent in Scripture for changing previously held beliefs in the way that the Apostles decided that Gentile converts were exempted from some precepts of Jewish law: Starting from the account of the experiences lived by the Apostles – in particular Peter and Paul with Barnabas, in their ministry of proclamation to the Gentiles – re-read and illuminated in the light of the Word of God, the process of dialogue leads to a progressive and detailed communal discernment of the issue. The decision taken synodally ("it has seemed good to the Holy Spirit and to us" (Acts 15:28) expresses the Church's growing awareness of a more mature relationship with its Jewish roots: for in this relationship it learns to discern, by interpreting under the guidance of the Spirit, the experience it is living, what is of permanent significance and finds its fulfilment in Jesus, and what, on the other hand, has only a provisional value. Ah yes, more mature. As are we. This sounds plausible unless you look more closely at the claim and how it is being manipulated – the moh-zhewst – to a very different end. The gentile converts were told, "You are to abstain from food sacrificed to idols, from blood, from the meat of strangled animals and from sexual immorality."(15:29) So, from potential idolatry and proniegha– which any Greek Lexicon will tell you means not only prostitution but fornication and unchastity. Whatever else it may be said to mean, the passage doesn't allow what both Jewish tradition and the practice of the early Church understood God had forbidden, the kind of same-sex relationships the study group wants to "emerge" now. You would think that, in 2000 years of Christian existence, it would have "emerged' long ago. But it didn't. And, in any honest assessment, can't now either. Behind all this lies another bit of legerdemain, namely an appeal to "lived experience" as a guide to dealing with present debates. In a sense, of course, lived experience is an important component of any individual life. But so is the accumulated "lived experience" of our tradition, or we're all just making it up – to suit ourselves – as we go along. Early Christianity notably learned much from Greco-Roman philosophies in addition t...

By David G Bonagura, Jr. Mother Church is still celebrating the record number of converts who were received into her family at Easter. Her task now, like that of all mothers, is to nourish her children so they grow in wisdom, age, and grace before God and man. As mothers with adult children know well, this task has no expiration date: the Church dispenses the gifts of salvation to each child until his final breath. How the Church performs this task, practically speaking, has varied over her long life. The early Church continued formal instruction of the newly baptized during Easter week. Before baptism, catechumens were taught about the faith; after it, they were led into faith via guided participation in the sacramental life. This post-baptismal training was called mystagogy (from the Greek mystagogos, "leading through the mysteries"). And it remains a model for us today. The converts, transformed by baptism into new creations – forever different from their former selves and forever members of God's family – now live the life of grace. That is, they practice the faith through prayer, sacraments, keeping the commandments, avoiding sin, developing virtues, and performing acts of charity. But how exactly are the neophytes, so many of whom have come to Catholicism without a religious upbringing, without a Christian worldview, and without many practicing Catholics around them to serve as models, to turn these Catholic actions into a coherent way of life? Take, for example, keeping the Commandments and avoiding sin. What the Catholic Church calls sins – consider cohabitation, pornography, IVF, surrogacy, same-sex relationships – are considered good by the world and are widely practiced. How will the new faithful be educated to know the truth and to realize what they once thought true is, in fact, a lie? And what about prayer, the bedrock of Christian life? How do they pray in a consistent, habitual way? What kinds of prayer should they practice, and for how long? What do they do when they experience dryness or when it seems their prayers go unanswered? To baptize these converts and then wish them well on their Catholic journeys without additional guidance would be akin to sowing seeds on rocky ground or among thorns. And let's face the painful reality: most Catholics today, even if they were baptized as infants and went to Catholic schools, know almost as little as do most converts, are equally malformed by our anti-Christian culture, and, tragically, their spiritual lives are just as uncultivated. Cradle Catholics have the same need and same hunger as the neophytes: they need ongoing catechesis, a school of Catholic living, a guided progression into union with God. And this modern mystagogy should be done in communion with others; Catholics are not meant to be lone rangers seeking salvation on their own. A modern mystagogy requires serious investments of time, resources, and personnel, gifts in short supply in today's Church with her limited funds and few priests. Yet God has inspired some of His children with the ingenuity and energy to make something like this happen. When done well, the fruits have been abundant. FOCUS, or Fellowship of Catholic University Students, is perhaps the most prominent expression of modern mystagogy. I have been blessed to sponsor two FOCUS missionaries in recent years and receive monthly updates from their respective campuses. FOCUS chapters offer a community for college students to learn the faith and live the faith in environments often hostile to religion. Its peer-to-peer approach and the full-time efforts of missionaries (who have to raise their own funds to operate as volunteers) have made FOCUS more effective than the typical college chaplaincy or Newman club. The latter are often worthy efforts, but often only offer Mass and perhaps an additional weekly event of some kind. Parishes that have mystagogy discipleship groups are few in number, but those that do are almost invariably on fire f...

By Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas Homily preached by the Reverend Peter M. J. Stravinskas, Ph.D., S.T.D., at the Church of St. Pius X, Forked River, New Jersey, for the Confirmation of Nolan Santos. 'I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons,' wrote our latest doctor of the Church – the great St. John Henry Newman – in one of his more famous meditations. His words have been coming back to me as I recall how I first stepped into a classroom of Ocean County College over a decade ago. It was my maiden voyage onto an unknown sea, difficult to navigate, because I was so shocked by the general ignorance of the products of twelve years of public education, let alone the overall lack of moral compass among the student body. I discovered, however, that not a few students were genuinely open to a serious learning experience. I convinced the college administration to offer a course in Latin, after a hiatus of many years. Two of the students in that class were lifelong buddies, Nicholas Bacchione and Nolan Santos. The former was keen on playing academic "catch-up" ball; the latter, not so much so. And he headed for the hills in a couple of weeks. Cardinal Newman frequently spoke about the importance of what he called the "personal influence" of a teacher: the personal influence of the teacher is able in some sort to dispense with an academical system, but that the system cannot in any sort dispense with personal influence. With influence there is life, without it there is none; if influence is deprived of its due position, it will not by those means be got rid of, it will only break out irregularly, dangerously. An academical system without the personal influence of teachers upon pupils, is an arctic winter; it will create an ice-bound, petrified, cast-iron University, and nothing else. My relationship with Nick went beyond the study of Latin and, over time, made him not only a better student but a better Catholic. That "influence" spawned a friendship – something not talked about a lot nowadays. And with a kind of ripple effect, Nick's friendship with Nolan moved Nolan into a more intimate relationship with Christ and His holy Church. They shared a friendship of virtue, as Aristotle put it: "Now equality and likeness are friendship, and especially the likeness of those who are like in virtue." Today, Nolan, marks the completion of your initiation into the life of the Church. In some sense, it's like a commencement ceremony, which marks the end of a process, but which also launches you on a new adventure. Today, the Holy Spirit will flood you with His grace; this is wholly His work in you – it is not your doing. It is God's free gift to you. As Georges Bernanos ends his piercing novel, Diary of a Country Priest, echoing the final words of the Little Flower, "All is grace!" Nolan, the good God has given you the great gift of a hunger and thirst for holy truth and, likewise, a passion for sharing that gift with others. St. John Paul II reminded us in his encyclical, Redemptoris missio, "Faith is strengthened when it is given to others!" And even more to the point, the finest thing that anyone can do for another human being is to introduce that person to Jesus Christ and His Church. That is not an easy mission in this very secular society, but it is not a "mission impossible" either. It is the task of that "new evangelization", and you should be buoyed up for that mission by having this programmatic mantra ringing in your ears – a line heard in today's Gospel – "Be not afraid!" You have been caught up in a web of grace, Nolan. Nobody could have planned it: Me at Ocean County College, Nick, You – and the Holy Spirit. Listen once more to Cardinal Newman's profound meditation; take it to heart: God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission – I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessa...

By Fr. Gerald E. Murray The Catholic Church is accustomed to attacks upon her teaching. The history of heresy over the centuries reveals the never-ending efforts of those who seek to replace Catholic doctrine with various errors. What the Church has only recently become accustomed to is attacks upon her teaching coming from some of her shepherds, especially from the never-ending pronouncements emanating from the office of the Synod of Bishops. The latest imposition of the Synod is the recently published full-fledged endorsement of the homosexual lifestyle in the Final Report of Study Group Number 9 "Theological Criteria and Synodal Methodologies for Shared Discernment of Emerging Doctrinal, Pastoral, and Ethical Issues." This report attempts to dismiss Catholic teaching on the inherent immorality of homosexual acts – and the disordered nature of the homosexual inclination – by stigmatizing that teaching as the expression of an obsolete "paradigm" that no longer can be relied upon to communicate God's will to His people. Merriam-Webster defines paradigm as "a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline within which theories, laws, and generalizations and the experiments performed in support of them are formulated." To describe Catholic teaching using the analogy of a framework upon which theories and experiments are arranged is to demote it from the realm of truth into just one possible approach to presenting God's revelation. Jesus said, "I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life." (John 14:6) Is that a paradigm needing improvement? The report includes two appendices, which are testimonies in the form of an interview. Two Catholic men (the first Portuguese, the second American), each proudly describing himself as being married to a man, even though the Catholic Church teaches that such a thing is impossible. Why would the Synod of Bishops publish interviews with men who reject Catholic teaching on the nature of marriage, inspired as it is by the Holy Spirit, as part of its effort to discern the workings of the Holy Spirit in the Church today? Report Number 9 gives us the answer – the Synod considers so-called homosexual marriage to be an open question: Finally, while listening to the Word of God lived in the Church, it is necessary to address with parrhesia the currently recurring question of whether one can speak of "marriage" in relation to persons with same-sex attractions, equating their relationship to heterosexual conjugal union without recognizing the differences. These include, primarily, the evident impossibility of procreation per se linked to sexual difference, regarding which techniques of medically assisted procreation pose further difficulties. Even worse, Report Number 9 considers all Catholic teaching as subject to change: The Church's mission is not a matter of abstractly proclaiming and deductively applying principles that are set out in an immutable and rigid manner, but of fostering a living encounter with the person of the risen Lord Jesus, by engaging with the lived experience of faith of the People of God in its personal and social relevance, in relation to the diverse situations of life and the many cultural contexts. Only the fruitful tension between what has been established in the Church's doctrine and her pastoral practice and the practices of life in which what has been established is verified, in the exercise of personal and communal life in the light of the Gospel, expresses the generative dynamism of Tradition: against the temptation of the sterile and regressive ossification of principles and statements, of norms and rules, regardless of the experience of individuals and communities. "The lived experience of faith of the People of God" can overrule the doctrine of the Faith? Welcome to the ecclesiastical embrace of "liquid modernity" in which metaphysical realism is cast aside, and the dictatorship of relativism and subjectivism subjects everything to redefiniti...

By Robert Royal Someone asked recently what it's like to be a Catholic writer these days. That brought me up short. Because the situation of a Catholic writer at present is pretty much like that of any Catholic – we're all bewildered by the many things now that seem to have passed beyond human, rational thought and action. Except, it's worse for the writer because he has to set down words to try to make some kind of sense about not only deep mysteries and moral controversies, but how they relate to our current chaos. The best thing he can do as he faces a blank sheet of paper – or more often now an empty screen – is to implore the Divine Mercy to send down a few decent sentences that might spread a ray of hope amid the darkness and noise. Our time is marked by what the philosopher Paul Ricoeur called a "hermeneutic of suspicion" – about everything, in both the Church and the world. Which is not entirely misguided, so long as it doesn't become the only lens through which we view the world. But social media has had the additional effect of whipping up doubts and conflicts into what often borders on hysteria. On such "platforms," every event becomes either the final cosmic apocalypse – or a "new outpouring of the Holy Spirit." A Catholic writer has to tell what truth he can, soberly, and without fear or favor, in the face of all that, without adding to the hysteria or despair. But given the nature of modern communications, we're all barely afloat on a very iffy sea of half-understood facts, much-jumped-to conclusions, and therefore uncertainties about serious matters that call for caution, reflection, and considered judgment – an asceticism in the use of the word. In my experience? I've been physically present in Rome for almost every controversial Church event since Pope Francis was elected in 2013. There are some things about the past dozen and more years that I'm quite certain about amidst many large gaps and ambiguities. (When the distinguished historian Henry Sire's Dictator Pope about Francis appeared in 2018, I thought he already had the basic story at least 75 percent right. And still do.) But more often, especially in comments disseminated on social media, I've observed people guessing, usually badly, and seeing sinister motives – even conspiracies – where often enough Roman ignorance, laziness, and incompetence suffice as explanations. The papacy is a non-hereditary monarchy with a disproportionate share of palace intrigues. There have also obviously been efforts at heterodox coups in recent years that have largely fizzled owing to their inherent emptiness. (See under heading: "synodality.") The nearest analogy to all this is what George Orwell, that troubling truth-teller, said about the Spanish Civil War (which he covered in person as a reporter). It's even more true of various disputes in our social-media age: I saw newspaper reports which did not bear any relation to the facts, not even the relationship which is implied in an ordinary lie. I saw great battles reported where there had been no fighting, and complete silence where hundreds of men had been killed. I saw troops who had fought bravely denounced as cowards and traitors, and others who had never seen a shot fired hailed as the heroes of imaginary victories, and I saw newspapers in London retailing these lies and eager intellectuals building emotional superstructures over events that had never happened. ("Looking Back on the Spanish War") Most of this, now as then, is clearly a product of journalists and intellectuals wanting to feel passionately and say something significant about what they wish to see as a radical moral or political question – but abstractly, not in what is going on, verifiably. Most of the time, a few actual facts are spun into a "news" story or opinion piece, but then yoked to some grand "narrative" that is, at best, only loosely tethered to reality. People now also routinely make severe judgments of others online, at a distance – ou...

By Brad Miner The current show at America's greatest museum, Raphael: Sublime Poetry, will run through June 28th of this year. As with most major exhibits at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, curators have gathered works by the artist from museums around the world – and in this case, not just by Raphael. There are 237 works in total, including 33 paintings, 142 drawings, some monumental tapestries, and some sculptural work, too. In remarks before the show's opening, principal curator Carmen Bambach said that, whereas many consider him third on the list of Renaissance masters, she "could make the argument that Raphael is every bit the equal of Leonardo and Michelangelo." After spending eight years pulling together the exhibit, I doubt she could say anything else. In any case, Raphael was a superb artist, and the show is stunning. I wonder, though, if most people could name a Raphael painting. Asked about da Vinci, many could name "The Last Supper" and certainly the "Mona Lisa." And about Michelangelo, the Sistine Chapel ceiling or one of his sculptures, the "David" or "Pietà" perhaps. Of course, visitors who've toured the Vatican Museum and seen the Raphael Rooms would certainly remember those extraordinary frescoes. But Ms. Bambach is among the best in the business when it comes to Renaissance art. When Robert and Veronica Royal were in Manhattan in 2017, my wife, Sidney , and I joined them at another of Bambach's MET curations, Michelangelo: Divine Draftsman and Designer. And even if I'd visited the Raphael show not knowing Bambach is its curator, I would likely have assumed it must be her handiwork. Raffaello Sanzio da Urbino (1483-1520) was a kind of shooting star: He came to Rome from Umbria in northeast-central Italy at the age of 23 and died there at 37. In his Lives of the Most Excellent Painters, Sculptors, and Architects, the first true art historian, Giorgio Vasari (who was born in 1511, so did not know Raphael personally) wrote of him: How generous and kind Heaven sometimes proves to be when it brings together in a single person the boundless riches of its treasures and all those graces and rare gifts that over a period of time are usually divided among many individuals can clearly be seen in the no less excellent than gracious Raphael. Vasari did know the great Michelangelo, and it's probably not an exaggeration to say he idolized him. And he definitely knew that the older man (Michelangelo was eight years Raphael's senior) frankly detested the upstart from the east, which enmity may have begun when Michelangelo saw himself portrayed in Raphael's Vatican fresco, The School of Athens, as an isolated, brooding, tormented Heraclitus. Michelangelo was neither a schemer nor a debaucher, and Raphael had a reputation for being both. Maybe yes, maybe no – it doesn't matter, because it's clearly what Michelangelo believed. But Vasari does write that when the sculptor Donato Bramante, keeper of the keys, let Raphael into the Sistine Chapel for the first time (Michelangelo was away in Florence), the young man was so stunned by the majesty and muscularity of Michelangelo's prophets and patriarchs, that "after he had already finished it, Raphael immediately repainted the figure of. . .Isaiah in Rome's Sant'Agostino." This may have been why Michelangelo said, "Everything he knew about art he got from me." In some versions of the quote, "got" is "stole." Whether or not Raphael was a plagiarist is debatable. After all, everybody who has mastered anything has had teachers along the way. The MET's show is comprehensive. It even includes a room in which all the frescoes from the aforementioned Vatican Raphael Rooms are projected by video onto the walls in rotation. (The same was true at that Michelangelo show, with the Sistine Chapel illuminated overhead in the gallery.) It is fine and fitting to see featured in the exhibit paintings by Pietro Perugino, a superb painter and one of Raphael's teachers, as well as bas-relief sculptur...

By Randall Smith Civics education is all the rage at the moment. And for good reason. In a recent article in Commentary, ("A Republic, If You Can Teach It"), Robert Pondiscio reports the grim news that: "Scores on the long-running National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in history and civics make the same students dismal performance in reading and math seem robust by comparison. . .'the typical American student is stunningly ignorant of her history and government,' with only 20 percent scoring 'proficient' in civics and 31 percent scoring 'below basic.' NAEP history test scores are even worse." Pondiscio's article is a review of The Cradle of Citizenship by James Traub. Traub recognizes that "history and civics standards, curricular material, official pronouncements from school leaders, and indeed the entire atmosphere surrounding the schools is shaped by progressive views so pervasive as barely even to be recognized as views." But he is defensive of "action civics" — "an approach to civic education favored by progressive educators that valorizes student participation in real-world political or community projects." According to Pondiscio, Traub believes such experiences "offer students an authentic encounter with democratic participation." Pondiscio replies that "Action civics stumbles, like so many education fads before it, because it assumes – incorrectly – that doing is a substitute for knowing": In practice, cultivating an activist impulse without deep background knowledge does not produce independent civic agency so much as the appearance of it. Students learn how to act, but not how to judge; how to mobilize, but not how to understand. The result is not self-government but a kind of civic ventriloquism – preparing young people to march energetically in someone else's army, convinced all the while that they are acting on their own. I have an alternative. This past semester, I assigned my students to attend a city council meeting, a county commissioners meeting, and a school board meeting. They were to sit and listen, then report and discuss what they saw. The results were instructive. • First, they had to find where those meetings were held. • Second, they had to get themselves there. They're adults; I wasn't taking them. No car? Take the bus, like plenty of people do who live in the city • And third, they found there were no long speeches. Speakers get no more than two minutes to make their case. I expected that what my students would find was mostly chaos and craziness, and that they would be somewhat put off by this. I was wrong. To their credit, my students found the good amid the confusion. And to their credit, they realized quickly they didn't know enough to make any sensible suggestions about the things being discussed. The city council was discussing the closure of a road to make way for a public works project. Some citizens complained this would make it impossible for them to get to work. "What did they think?" I asked. They admitted they didn't know where that road was, why it was being closed, or whether it would cause insoluble problems for these people. Other citizens complained about a homeless shelter slated to open near their school. The mayor reassured them it would be a "great" center with "the best people" and "expert care," so no worries. "Were they reassured?" Not really, but they weren't sure. They wanted to help the homeless. But a center right down the street from a school? They understood why the parents would be concerned. They also understood why people would be out in the streets demonstrating for the center ("Don't be heartless; we have to care for the homeless!") and against it ("These are our children!") At the county commissioners' meeting, they met up with another important issue: federalism. The commissioners were supposed to take up the re-districting approved by the Texas legislature. But that re-districting plan was being challenged in court, so the commissioners' meetin...

By Robert Royal Pope Leo travelled to four African countries this month, which included not only the usual calls for peace, justice, and brotherhood, but several touching and poignant moments with local communities. Let's hope that the presence of this Successor to Peter, who possesses a natural gentleness and piety, bears much fruit. Unfortunately, on the way back to Rome on Thursday, we were treated to yet another muddled in-flight papal press conference, which grabbed headlines and has left many Catholics confused – and dismayed. A pope has multiple good channels to express himself. A press conference is not one of them. By its very nature, these informal Q&A sessions make it seem that the Church's teachings and the words of the pope himself, are like a politician commenting on political issues. One could already see the usual rhetorical and moral tangle coming, for instance, in this exchange with a German journalist: I would like to know how you assess the decision of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, Archbishop of Munich and Freising, that he gave permission to the blessing of same-sex couples in his diocese, and in light of different cultural and theological perspectives, especially in Africa, how do you intend to preserve the unity of the global Church on that particular matter? [Pope Leo XIV, in English:] First of all, I think it's very important to understand that the unity or division of the Church should not revolve around sexual matters. We tend to think that when the Church is talking about morality, that the only issue of morality is sexual. And in reality, I believe there are much greater, more important issues, such as justice, equality, freedom of men and women, freedom of religion, that would all take priority before that particular issue. The Holy See has already spoken to the German bishops. The Holy See has made it clear that we do not agree with the formalized blessing of couples. We "do not agree" is a weak response to a strong challenge. It's not a matter of agreement or disagreement, but of the teachings of Jesus and His Church since time immemorial. And like it or not, sexual ethics – which go deep into the Christian conception of the human person ("male and female he created them') – is a central matter. Not the only one to be sure. But trying to finesse what amounts to rebellion within the Church and surrender to the spirit of the world is a poor tactic for holding the Church together. And it won't work against the global LGBT juggernaut. The only thing that might is a firm theological and doctrinal stance Further, while it is true that the Church teaches that there are more and less serious sins (as we often say here, see Dante's Inferno for a graphic image) – and it is in fact an Augustinian theme that has been stated more clearly by other recent popes – is this a good way to speak to our culture today? [BTW, next month I will be offering a brief course on "Leo and the Augustinian Tradition" (here) in which we will pursue several of the central questions in greater detail.] What would be better? The pope has his own attractive style, and he could decide about that. But the substance would have to go something like this to remain a good Augustinian, which is to say faithful to the fullness of Catholic reality: All mortal sins are serious. Indeed, all sins, however venial, take us away from God, our fellow human beings, and our own true selves. The human person has been so created by God that – ever since Cain and Abel – the most obvious way we turn away from God's order and being is through physically harming, even to the point of killing one another. This would be the barest of openings and at least Biblically grounded. But it couldn't stop there. It would have to make some distinctions that have always existed in the Church. Something like this: Sexual sins are the easiest to understand, because they so closely resemble the love God has placed in us to love other persons, especially God Himself. They a...

By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Today is commonly known as Good Shepherd Sunday. It puts before us one of the most familiar and beautiful descriptions of God. The prayers at Mass speak of Him as the "brave" and "kind" shepherd. For this reason, today is also World Day of Prayer for Vocations. As we hear about the one Good Shepherd we should be moved to pray for more shepherds after His own Heart. Problem is, the Good Shepherd doesn't make an appearance in today's Mass. In the Gospel (John 10:1-10), Jesus says not, "I am the Good Shepherd" but "I am the gate of the sheep." Which is not as warm and inviting an image. Christian art has many depictions of the Good Shepherd, but are there any of the Gate? And "Gate Sunday" doesn't have the same ring as "Good Shepherd Sunday." Still, this image (and more than that) of the gate captures not only what Christ is for us but also what should be prayed for, instilled, and demanded of the Church's shepherds. "Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep." This verse is one of the great "I am" statements of Christ in John's Gospel. Jesus makes the first as He comes walking on the water: "Do not be afraid. I am." (Jn 6:20) After that comes a whole series: I am; the bread of life; the light of the world; the good shepherd; the way, the truth and the life; the true vine. With each statement, Jesus reveals more fully what was first proclaimed to Moses on Mount Sinai: "Say this to the people of Israel, 'I AM has sent me to you.'" (Exodus 3:14) He reveals more what the Lord is for His people. "Amen, amen, I say to you, I am the gate for the sheep." We have to get the analogy right, because, like the others, this is not just an image. Jesus is not like bread; bread is like Him. He is not like light; light is like Him. So also, He is not like a gate; a gate is like Him – and points to the reality of what He is for us. An evocative detail of shepherding in our Lord's day is that the shepherd would corral his flock into the sheepfold and then would himself lie down across the opening – thus in a real sense becoming the gate of the sheep. Jesus is not just a gate; He is the Gate that all those other shepherds pointed to. A gate guards. A shepherd might lie down and with his body against part of the wall or fence, to keep out what is not of or for the flock. As the gate, Jesus is the guard and guarantee of good shepherds. He keeps out "thieves and robbers." This reminds us of the reality that throughout the Church's history there have always been those so-called shepherds who do not want the flock to "have life and have it more abundantly," but who have come only "to steal and slaughter and destroy." In every day and age of the Church, there have been wolves in shepherd's clothing. But a gate also opens – and thus gives access to the flock inside the sheepfold. This is how true shepherds enter: "Whoever enters through the gate is the shepherd of the sheep." The gate is open, but as a kind of pathway that can only be passed by those who shepherd the flock rightly. An authentic and authoritative shepherd is the one who passes through the gate, who approaches the flock – not on his own terms or his own wisdom or for his own glory – but through Christ Himself. A true shepherd proportions himself to the gate. Indeed, this whole passage is directed more to would-be shepherds than to the sheep. John notes, "Although Jesus used this figure of speech, the Pharisees did not realize what he was trying to tell them." That is, Jesus is speaking not so much to the crowds – to the flock – as to those who claim to shepherd the flock. Obviously, this also constitutes an examination of conscience for us priests (or maybe I'm just being too sensitive). The temptation to use the flock for one's own selfish gain – for material gain or emotional comfort or applause – can sneak slowly and imperceptibly into a priest's heart. The purifying question for a priest is whether I am entering into the sheepfold on my own terms an...

By Nick Palmer There are things I did during my wife's final illness that, had you asked me beforehand, I would have said I could never do. Not would not, could not. The distinction matters. When the time came, I did them. Not heroically – there was nothing heroic about it. I did them because the fact of her need, fully accepted, left me no honest alternative. The decision space had collapsed. What had looked, in the abstract, like a wide field of options turned out, on the ground, to be a very short list. On that list, when she wasn't hospitalized, was waking every forty-five minutes through the night to help her roll over. She could not do it herself. I thought about this recently when reading a Medal of Honor citation. The recipient, in the aftermath, said what so many of them say: "I just did what anyone would have done." This is usually taken as modesty. I no longer think that's what it is. Consider what Major Jay Vargas faced over three days at Dai Do, Vietnam, in May 1968. He entered the second day already wounded from relocating his unit under fire the day before. He led the attack anyway, crossing seven hundred meters of open rice paddy under mortar, rocket, and artillery fire. Hit again by grenade fragments, he refused aid, reorganized his perimeter, and held it through the night against repeated counterattacks. On the third day, wounded a third time, he watched his battalion commander go down with a serious injury. He crossed the fire-swept ground, carried the man to cover, and returned to supervising the defense. His citation records not what he endured but what he did each time a new challenge arose. When men like Vargas say afterward that anyone would have done it, they are making a precise claim: that the facts, fully accepted, corner you. At each point across those three days, two of his three options were evasions: run or collapse. One was not. Courage, in this account, is not a superhuman quality. It is the refusal to lie about what the situation requires. Aristotle would recognize this. For him, courage is not the absence of fear. The courageous man feels fear, as any sane person would with multiple shrapnel and bullet wounds. Courage is the correct response to the situation as it actually is. The coward and the man who runs are not lacking in feeling. They are evading the fact. The courageous man is simply the one who doesn't. This is a pattern, not an exception. Facts, genuinely accepted, narrow your options. Often to a binary. The diagnosis that cannot be unfound. The child who needs feeding. The friend you have watched fall. In each case, there is a version of yourself that knew, in the abstract, that such things happen. But now, at a concrete moment, you must respond to the fact that it is happening. The second version has fewer choices available than the first. That is not a loss. It is a form of clarity. Fr. Luigi Giussani was an Italian priest who founded Communion and Liberation, one of the most significant Catholic renewal movements of the twentieth century. Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger (later Pope Benedict XVI) celebrated his friend's funeral Mass in 2005 at the Duomo in Milan. His central intellectual achievement is a trilogy – The Religious Sense, At the Origin of the Christian Claim, and Why the Church? – which argues that Christianity must be encountered as a living reality. In the second volume Giussani makes the distinction that snaps our earlier examples into focus. All of human religious history, he argues, can be understood as man reaching upward toward the mystery – imagining it, constructing systems to approach it, building what he calls bridges with a thousand arches between earth and heaven. 'This is a noble effort. It is also, he says, an effort that by its nature cannot complete itself. The mystery, properly understood, exceeds reason's reach. The horizon recedes as you approach it. But then something changes the question entirely. Into the plain full of bridge-builders comes a man...

O tenso encontro no Plantío entre Burgos e Deportivo, que rematou con polémica arbitral e reparto de puntos, centrou o Galicia en Goles do sábado, que tamén contou a xornada da 1ª RFEF e todo o polideportivo. Neste eido cómpre destacar o ascenso do San Sadurniño á Superliga masculina de voleibol, e a clasificación para a final europea do Guardés.

By Francis X. Maier Rome, if not quite the "Eternal City," is nearly 2,800 years old and counting. I first encountered it in the 1970s, visiting my wife's uncle, a priest who served in the Congregation (now the Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith. What I remember most vividly from those few days is a Fellini-esque evening performance of the opera Aida with live elephants in the Baths of Caracalla, followed by a hair-raising drive home through Roman traffic. The city then was an electric blend of the sacred and profane: a cocktail of religious piety, astounding beauty, garish energy, and opiate nostalgia; strange and intoxicating at the same time. I loved it. Over the years I've returned many times, always with the same mix of feelings. In all those visits, the living Catholic soul of the city redeemed its vulgarity and graffiti porn – a venerable Roman tradition – and offered some clean, fresh joy for the spirit to counter the narcotic scent of the past and its ruins. I'm old enough to remember, as a child, the recorded voice of Pius XII. In the papacies of John XXIII to Benedict XVI, evangelical zeal, pastoral service, and brilliant intellect coincided and reinforced each other. They converted my adult heart. Exacting Catholic thought mattered. It was the fertile soil for Christian action. I visited Rome twice in the last years of the Francis papacy. The mood of the place had changed. Some of my disenchantment with the city doubtless came from age; my own, not the city's. Skepticism tends to grow along with one's years. But it was also more than that. There were days, then, when Catholic Rome felt like Constantinople in the last sclerotic years of the Palaiologoi emperors: a museum amid the hostile and indifferent, curated by the mediocre. For the believer who looks too closely and reflects too long, Rome can sometimes be more of a scab on the spirit than a spring of refreshment. This isn't new of course. Quite the opposite. Martin Luther had the same reaction. That didn't end well. It was new, though, for me and many others who entered their teens as Vatican II opened; years subsequently blessed by a string of intellectually gifted popes who'd suffered and survived the worst years of the last century. Francis came from very different roots. He was a champion of the poor, and his pontificate had important strengths, but not in the same category. His death a year ago this week left a range of internal Church conflicts unresolved. Easter is a time for celebration and renewed hope. In a few weeks we need to carry those qualities into the liturgical season of "Ordinary Time." A question we face going forward is this: How can we heal the frustrations and divisions that naturally come with Church conflict in a time of profound change? Worries and resentments can strip the heart of joy like a plague of locusts at harvest. So I go back, again and again, to three things. First, we need to remember and pray for Pope Francis, and also for our own conversion from the role we ourselves play in today's ongoing ecclesial conflicts. And we need to do it sincerely, with a good will. Second, we need to remember Church history because it's a lesson in hope. Reading Carlos Eire's Reformations, or Brad Gregory's The Unintended Reformation, or Hubert Jedin's great History of the Council of Trent, or any similar record of the medieval or ancient Christian Church is both sobering and encouraging. Sobering, because division in the Church is a chronic human virus. Encouraging, because Nero (and so many others like him) would be shocked we're still here. There's never really been a golden age of tranquility in Christian life because our nature doesn't allow it. We're flawed creatures. We – and "we" means all of us, from popes to plumbers – do bad things that have big consequences. That's why Golgotha and Easter had to happen. But we're also capable of heroism, virtue, self-sacrifice, and nobility, and God never abandons us. That's why we're st...

By Michael Pakaluk "Our foreign-born citizens must permit us to say that they have been imprudent and have committed some serious mistakes," so writes an esteemed Catholic social philosopher about the immigration question. "It is wrong to claim as a natural right what is really only a boon. No nation is bound to admit foreigners to all the rights and immunities of natural-born citizens." This highly revered author continues, "The nation has the natural right to preserve itself, and that which constitutes what it is, – its national spirit, genius, usages, manners, and customs, – and therefore has a natural right to guard against any influx of foreigners, which, in its judgment, is incompatible with the maintenance of its identity." This Catholic of very good judgment then attacks the universal humanism which some call "globalism": "For foreigners to claim as a natural right to be placed on an equal footing with natural-born citizens, is entirely to misrepresent American republicanism, and to assert the abominable doctrine of the solidarity of peoples, maintained by the infamous revolutionists of Europe, which is incompatible, not only with all regular government, but with all national independence." I will not name him just yet. Let's see if you can guess his name as I say more about him. He's been someone always disposed to say what he regards as true, not what's "politic." Just before he published these words, he had been offered a distinguished professorship at a newly founded Catholic university, in a country from which many of these "foreigners" were emigrating. But the religious leaders of that country, especially the Catholic bishops, were so disturbed by his sentiments, that they insisted that his invitation be withdrawn. In effect, he was cancelled. True, it was an odd invitation in the first place. Although he was a recognized social and political philosopher, and a wide-ranging theologian, he was asked to lecture in a subject outside his expertise. I will reproduce part of the Rector's letter of invitation: we feel it impossible to offer you any inducement sufficient to lead you to connect yourself personally with the institution, nor indeed are we ourselves yet in a position to make such an offer to anyone. But we have thought we might still avail ourselves of the name and assistance of various eminent Catholics, in a way which it is possible both for them and for us to contemplate. What I take the liberty of asking you, is, whether you would consent to accept the office of Lecturer Extraordinary for (we will say) a year. The subject which I should propose to your acceptance would be one of such surpassing interest and breadth that I am often surprised that it is not put more prominently forward in Collegiate establishments. We never omit a professorship of astronomy, but how much more fertile a subject of thought is the province of geography! Viewed under its different heads, as physical, moral, and political, it gives scope to a variety of profound philosophical speculations, which will at once suggest themselves to your mind. It treats of the very stage and field of all history; of the relation of that field to the characters of nations, to social institutions, and to forms of religion, of the migrations of tribes, the direction and course of conquests and empires, the revolutions and extension of commerce, and the future destinies of the human race. This is the subject I offer to your acceptance. This social and philosopher, not inclined to lecture on geography, was disposed to turn down such an invitation. He let some powerful friends know the same, after which the invitation was changed. The Rector sent a revised invitation: it disappointed me that you did not see your way to assist us in the University in the way I pointed out. . . .It has struck me you would not be disinclined to take the chair of Philosophy of Religion, or the Evidences of Christianity, or of the Notes of the Church, especially as viewe...

By Casey Chalk It's easy to get lost in Biblical numerological speculation, as even a cursory study of the Church Fathers proves. St. Irenaeus attempted to explain the number of the beast from Revelation 13:17–18 by adding the numerical value of the Greek letters in the names "Evanthas," "Lateinos," and "Teitan" to get the ominous 666. St. Augustine argues that the meaning of 153 fish caught by the Apostles (John 21:11): there are Ten Commandments, the number seven signifies holiness, ten plus seven equals seventeen, and if all the numbers from 1 to 17 are added together (e.g. 1+2+3, etc.) they equal 153. St. Cyril in contrast breaks the number 153 into 100 (the large number of Gentiles to be saved), 50 (the small number of Jews to be saved) and 3 (the Trinity). Given such seemingly unsubstantiated speculation, it's easy to be tempted to throw up one's hands and conclude that looking for spiritual significance in the various numbers of Holy Scripture is not a particularly fruitful enterprise. The writings of the church father and Doctor of the Church St. Isidore of Seville (560-636) – whose feast day we celebrated earlier this month – should, however, give us pause. His work The Mystical Meaning of Numbers in Sacred Scripture helps clarify why the use of numbers in the Bible matters in exegesis and theology. St. Isidore was one of the most celebrated men of the seventh century. Born into a pious family (his brothers Leander and Fulgentius and sister Florentina are also saints), Isidore was in time appointed Vicar Apostolic for the whole of Spain by Pope St. Gregory the Great. He convened a Council of the Church in Spain (the Second Council of Seville) in response to the heresy of the Acephali, which rejected the teachings of the Council of Chalcedon on the union of the divine and human natures in Christ. He also convened the Fourth Council of Toledo, which bound the Spanish monarchy to the Catholic Church and established seminaries for the formation of clergy. Only sixteen years after his death, the Spanish Church at Toledo unanimously agreed he should be declared both a saint and a Doctor of the Church. Because of his writings on numbers, Pope St. John Paul II in 1997 declared Isidore the patron saint of the internet. Holy Scripture teaches: "In measure, and in number, and in weight Thou hast ordered all things." (Wisdom 11:21) Inspired by this, Isidore's Etymology sees a symbolic value in numbers: The importance of numbers should not be overlooked, and in many places in the Sacred Scriptures mystical meanings shine forth through them with radiance and illumination. . . .And if number and quantity were to be taken away from creation, all things would lose their forms and cease to exist. In The Mystical Meaning of Numbers in Sacred Scripture, Isidore walks us through such interpretations, from numbers one through twelve. One, for example, "represents both indivisibility and completeness," whose exemplar and archetype is God Himself, the origin of all things: "One or unity is the seed and basis of all subsequent numbers. For out of unity, all subsequent numbers emanate or are created." Of course the most perfect example of unity is God, as the Shema asserts: "Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one." (Deut. 6:4) The Church is also one, though the sins of her members undoubtedly harm that oneness, as the sins of the individual Christian harm the integrity of the wholeness of the human person created in God's image. Two is the first number that can be divided, and thus "represents the possibility of fundamental opposition," giving rise to potential conflict: good and evil, light and darkness, life and death. The Old Testament is filled with examples of such oppositions: Cain and Abel, Saul and David, Israel and Judah. Jesus employs it constantly in His parables: wheat and tares, sheep and goats, the two sons. Isidore's analysis also anticipates a response to Protestant thought: "There are two aspects or means which ...

By Brad Miner And Simeon blessed them, and said to Mary his mother: Behold this child is set for the fall, and for the resurrection of many in Israel, and for a sign which shall be contradicted. (Luke 2:34) By 1973, there'd been one papal trip to the U.S. – by Paul VI in 1965, and that was for all of 15 hours. And before that visit, no pope had even left Italy since Pius VII was forcibly removed to France by Napoleon's troops in 1812. Yet Catholicism managed to encourage converts. I would never argue against evangelization. In one way or another, evangelizing is what The Catholic Thing's contributors do daily. We proclaim, "Jesus Christ and him crucified." (1 Corinthians 2:2) But clerics daily diving into the media scrum or popes having wings (John Paul II made 104 pastoral trips outside of Italy) may not be as conducive to conversions as are the Faith's doctrines and rituals. Besides, not every pope has been as grounded and charismatic as St. John Paul. In any case, when we remember him, we don't think of the comments he made about conflicts in Africa, the Middle East, or South Asia. And this is because, as a rule, he didn't make them. He was more catechist than commentator. At its heart, the Catholic Church is (and must be) opposed to "the world" because Jesus is. When Cardinal Karol Wojtyla gave the Lenten meditations to Paul VI and the Roman Curia in 1976, he welded "a sign of contradiction" onto the Catholic imagination. Jesus is that sign: either you are for Him, or you are against Him. Everything about Jesus Christ flies in the face of all worldly ambition that seeks to see life in terms other than the Cross. Yet the Church, by which I mean official Vatican "voices," now inserts itself into every imaginable secular issue, reducing – to greater and lesser degrees – the message of Christ to a mere alternative to the various Timeses (New York, London, India, Israel), and TASS, BBC, NBC, Xinhua, et cetera, and ad nauseam. The Church seems determined to root us in every imaginable finite business when it ought to be leading us towards the ineffable infinite. And this attention to "the world" inevitably makes the Church seem increasingly worldly. Trump. Putin, Xi. Leo? Take your pick. They all seem to be in the same business. Well, I'm not, though, meaning to suggest the end of Animal Farm: "The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which." In that, Leo XIV surely stands apart. And yet, I believe he has, so far, allowed himself to step too close to the secular abyss. For example: Trump. One might wonder if the pope's decision not to come to the U.S. for the 250th anniversary of the founding of the nation of his birth had something to do with the current occupant of the White House. I don't know. But a pope's visit to the White House is simply a matter of protocol: one head of state welcoming another. It is in no sense an endorsement of that president any more than a president, by meeting with a pope, is confirming the Holy Father's authority. No pope has slept in the White House, and the only pope-president liaison that became more than mere protocol was the one between John Paul II and Ronald Reagan. Before he became president, Reagan had been inspired by John Paul's visit to still-communist Poland, which became the Reagan Era's template for U.S. and U.S.S.R, relations. And, of course, they bonded over their shared experiences of nearly being killed by assassins. More than that, they liked and admired one another. IF Leo believes he, too, must be a peripatetic pope, he should have made July 2026 to the United States of America among his first journeys. Yes, there'd have to be the obligatory July 3rd photo op with DJT (without expectation of apology from the "leader of the free world" for his anti-Catholic Truth Social rants), but then (the same day, it seems to me) off to Philadelphia for the Fourth, after which off to Chic...

By David G Bonagura, Jr. I recently discovered All Creatures Great and Small, a 1930s-set British comedy-drama chronicling a trio of veterinarians working in rural Yorkshire. In the latest episode that I watched, Great Britain declares war on Nazi Germany and the draft began. The characters, remembering only too well the horrors of World War I, automatically took up the old practices: advising younger men about enlisting arrangements and rationing food items. That last really struck me. For the vets and their families, Mrs. Hall baked hot cross buns as she had twenty years earlier, using a less-than-ideal substitute for sugar, which was being rationed. The results: a knowing laugh over the poor-tasting treats to come. The United States last practiced rationing during World War II. What would happen today if, for whatever grave reason, our political leaders asked us to ration? I think we all know. We, the citizens of the most prosperous nation the world has ever known, blessed with food and beverage in quantities and quality that the Greatest Generation could not have imagined eighty years ago, would break into open rebellion. Sacrifice? That's no longer a virtue. Personal fulfillment is the name of the contemporary game. And our incredible abundance of material goods, which has spoiled us rotten, exists to serve this end. We ask only what our country can do for us – surely, we don't owe it anything. But it's not just our country we refuse these days. Collectively, as Catholics, we largely do not sacrifice for God either. Our Church-imposed Lenten fasting has been whittled down to the barest minimum of two days; self-imposed fasts – the thing we "give up" – typically are from a single luxury item. We also are not much inclined to put a decent offering into the parish basket each week, and many outright refuse to give to diocesan appeals. Care for the poor, help for the sick, healthcare for retired priests and religious, training for seminarians? No thanks, we tell ourselves – we know better where to direct our money. "For God and Country" was once a proud motto for Americans. We can find the phrase, sometimes in English and sometimes in Latin, inscribed into the cornerstone of churches and even public buildings. Its ubiquity implies widespread acceptance of the need to sacrifice for these two great entities that are bigger than we are. We should serve them – and most once believed that they were worth serving. What's striking today is not the widespread individualism that has long since replaced this service mentality. It's that the leading institutions of God and Country – the Church and the State – have unwittingly contributed to our selfishness rather than call us out of to it. Many Protestant denominations have forsaken the Ten Commandments for a "love is love" ersatz morality. In 1966, the American bishops ended the obligatory penance of Friday abstinence in favor of a penance of one's choosing (an exhortation that almost no one knows about, but I digress). Some Holy Days of Obligation have gradually been lifted or shifted. Most pastors blanch at the suggestion of requiring Mass attendance for children seeking the sacraments. There seems to be a persistent fear that if the faithful are asked to do too much, they won't come back. So they are left to do largely as they please. As religion's influence has waned, the State has tried to fill the power vacuum. Now nearly every aspect of human life is subordinated to it. Having subsumed the roles of community and local governments, the State fans the flames of selfishness with laws that pit individuals over families and local institutions – as well as with programs, such as healthcare and entitlements, that are administered directly from the government to individuals. From 2001-2006, the U.S. Army tried to tap into the individualist mindset with its "An Army of One" recruiting campaign. Can Americans rediscover a love of God and country along with a willingness to serve them ...

By David Warren The pope may be many things in many contexts, but he should avoid becoming a shill for the Democratic Party. This is how he came across when he delivered a political statement just after he had been visited by David Axelrod, Obama's behind-the-scenes heavy. The effect was redoubled when leading liberal Cardinals, including Chicago's Blase Cupich, put on a media floorshow to promote the pope's "message to America." It was prattle we had heard many times before, from nice, peaceful politicians like Jimmy Carter: peace-not-war, appeasement, and negotiation at any price. The pope had been proclaiming this himself on Twitter when he was only Cardinal Robert Prevost: simplistic Leftism along with Democratic talking points, and open immigration. President Trump replied: "Leo should get his act together as Pope, use Common Sense, stop catering to the Radical Left, and focus on being a Great Pope, not a Politician. It's hurting him very badly, and more importantly, it's hurting the Catholic Church." I copy this concluding passage from his "Truth Social," for it is routinely passed over by "the Media." Trump was not attacking the Catholic Church. He was being characteristically candid, as we might hope that churchmen, too, might be candid, sometimes. The contrary impression – that Trump was putting his boot in – was made by spokesmen for the anti-Trump side, with fond memories of the days when the Catholic Church could almost be presented as a department of the Democratic Party. This continues to be part of leftwing mythology, and the media still want to believe it, although American Catholics have mostly risen from the abortion sewer in which it deposited them. Moreover, Pope Leo could not himself have wished to be seen, playing an obvious political game, even if he was. He was being used by a capable professional operative, who was exploiting his naivety and inexperience. He wasn't trying to be mischievous, as his predecessor often was. Of course, Trump can be worse than mischievous, and should practice the custody of his mouth, harder. He is much too articulate. The role of political trolls has now migrated, with other disagreeable creatures, to the Left both in America and in Western Europe. It still has not penetrated deeply into Eastern Europe, where people still retain the experience of Communism, and the many unpleasant connotations of the word "peace" in Communist propaganda. But west of there, are the modern liberal lands, where the words "Trump," and "Jews" (or alternatively, "Israel") regularly fetch an automatic hysteria that was instilled by Cold-War Soviet psychology, designed to flourish in low-intelligence environments. American Democrats can carry the brainless tradition one ocean-width farther. They can now teach Europe a thing or two, for instance: how to become catastrophically "woke." Christ's expression, "Forgive them for they know not what they do," is one that we should all meditate upon. It is not a spiritual advantage to be terminally stupid. And if you are, someone is needed to take care of you, for you will be a danger not only to your community, but to yourself. Indeed, as I have argued here and elsewhere, that is a "problem with democracy," which becomes ever worse, now that we have entered the era of "artificial intelligence." More and more extreme forms of know-nothingness have become possible in the general population. Previously, one had to know at least how to tie one's shoes, and there were levels of common sense that were equivalently "known" to everyone. Now, no matter how low the bar is set, all bets are off. Those who are familiar with Christianity, and for that matter usually the other "great religions," know, or knew, that peace was not obtainable without some level of judgement. If, for instance, someone is plausibly trying to kill you, "peace talks" with him will not necessarily make him desist. If he has, by reputation, the habit of killing anyone with whom he disagrees –...

By Amy Fahey But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight – Thursday, April 16 at 8 PM Eastern – to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss President Trump's blasphemous cartoon (and his insults aimed at Leo XIV), the Holy Father's Apostolic Journey in Africa, as well as other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel. Now for today's column... Today marks the death, over nine centuries ago, of St. Magnus, a jarl or earl of Orkney, those windswept isles off the coast of mainland Scotland. His holy life is recounted in the Orkneyinga Saga, which captures, in spare and forceful language, his Christian witness in an era when violence and ambition regularly upended the lives of ordinary crofters and fisherfolk. The imaginative energies of Orcadian writer and convert George Mackay Brown were fired by the story of St. Magnus, resulting in numerous poems, a drama, an opera (with composer Peter Maxwell Davies), and shorter narratives. The Magnus muse is nowhere more evident than in Mackay Brown's 1973 novel, Magnus. It's a strange work, at once innovative and imitative, proceeding through a succession of interwoven voices and symbols: the rise and fall of oars, scythes, weapons, the chanting of psalms, the web of light and harp and loom. I'm not sure it can even be called a novel. It's more of a dramatic meditation, a stylized, lyrical evocation of meaning – closer to poetry. Perhaps unhelpfully, Brown himself says in his memoir, "Realism is the enemy of the creative imagination." He presents the martyrdom of St. Magnus, betrayed by his cousin and rival earl, Hakon, as an example of a larger pattern: "At certain times and in certain circumstances men still crave spectacular sacrifice," says Mackay Brown. "They root about everywhere for a victim and a scapegoat to stand between the tribe and the anger of inexorable Fate." In his memoir, For the Islands I Sing, Mackay Brown reveals his motives for a strange transposition that occurs when the novel comes to the martyrdom: Quite suddenly one morning, as I was thinking of ways to tell the story of the actual martyrdom in Egilsay in 1117, it occurred to me that the whole story would strike a modern reader as remote and unconnected with our situation in the twentieth century. The truth must be that such incidents are not isolated casual happenings in time, but are repetitions of some archetypal pattern; an image or event stamped on the spirit of man at the very beginning of man's time on earth, that will go on repeating itself over and over in every life without exception until history at last yields a meaning. I did not have far to go to find a parallel: a concentration camp in central Europe in the spring of 1944. With this shift to Nazi Germany, Mackay Brown highlights the terrifying ordinariness of evil, the presupposition that violence and brutality are a default setting for humanity, and defy resistance. Thus, the killing of Magnus is presented in the novel as something administrative, procedural. Lifolf the cook, who has been conscripted by Earl Hakon to carry out the actual murder, repeatedly declares, "Of course it had nothing to do with me. . . . One does not dispute with one's superiors inside the barbed wires." Shakespeare offers striking parallels in the "functionaries" of King Lear. The captain, who surrenders his humanity by delivering Edmund's order for the execution of Cordelia, ironically claims he cannot "draw a cart or eat dried oats" like a brute workhorse, but if "it be man's work, I'll do it." Standing in defiant opposition to the contagious violence of Lear is the gesture of the unnamed servants who minister to Gloucester immediately after the gouging out of his eyes. One perishes trying to stop the brutality...

By Robert Royal. I've been in Lisbon and, the past few days, Rome presenting translations of my recent book The Martyrs of the New Millennium. It's encouraging that Christians in Europe are starting to realize the virulence and extent of anti-Christian acts around the world – including their (our) own "developed" nations. But, of course, I've also encountered sharp reactions here about the troubled relationship between the United States and Europe – the "Western civilization" that we all worry about – especially given the divisions over the current war in Iran. Despite appearances, the two attitudes are interrelated. In the media, you get the impression that the war has turned the entire world against America. That may be the consensus in certain journalistic and intellectual circles at home and abroad. And the president's reckless language about destroying a whole "civilization" in Iran, his ill-informed and bad-tempered rant against Pope Leo, to say nothing of the Truth Social blasphemous image of himself as a kind of savior (now taken down) have not done him – or America – any good, anywhere. Yet the current conflict has caused some people I've met in the past few days to think more deeply about the "West" and the ways in which, as one person put it, we – Europe and America – are unbreakably two sides of a single coin. And will remain so, in the near future, despite current differences. At a conference in Rome this past weekend on the future of liberty and traditional values, one of the themes that clearly emerged was the gulf between the Western nations (with their Christian-derived concepts of liberty and human dignity) and all the others (China, India, the Middle East, even Russia to a degree) where those values are not present. That was also the main point of Secretary of State Marco Rubio's speech in February at the Munich Security Conference: We are part of one civilization – Western civilization. We are bound to one another by the deepest bonds that nations could share, forged by centuries of shared history, Christian faith, culture, heritage, language, ancestry, and the sacrifices our forefathers made together for the common civilization to which we have fallen heir. Some Europeans thought Rubio's speech and, even more so, the earlier (harsher) one by JD Vance were mere scolding of the continent to get in line with American views. But both were in fact a much deeper evocation of something unique to the West on both sides of the Atlantic: the Christian conception of human beings and public affairs. Unfortunately, even the Vatican in recent years has often seemed interested in "openness" to other cultures and religions, and relatively less willing to affirm the Christian nature of our Western foundations. You sometimes hear these days that, given the rift with America, Europe now has to think about going its own way and becoming a "superpower" in its own right. But for several people I've met in recent days here, this is a utopian illusion. Without America, Europe is not much of a global player. Even internally, the individual nations that make up Europe each have their own interests. Sometimes those overlap, sometimes not. They don't even have a common language to unite them. Such unity as they have lies elsewhere, deeper, as Marco Rubio reminded them – and us. The truth about all this is not always easy to see because in "the West" the foundation of our distinctiveness – Christianity – has been in retreat, less in America than in Europe, but to a worrying degree in America, also. To those of us old enough to have read books – actual words printed on paper running to hundreds of pages or more – and who even may have delved into that esoteric thing called "poetry," this can't help but remind us of a once-famous passage from a semi-sage from the Victorian Era, Matthew Arnold. In "Dover Beach," Arnold described how religion, like a sea, once bathed the whole world, "But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdraw...

By Anne Hendershott Catholic social teaching sees work not as a burden to be engineered away, but as a central part of life wherein the human person is formed. From Genesis to Laborem exercens, the Church teaches that work's dignity lies not in how new or efficient it is, but in how it forms character, skill, and a commitment to the common good. This is precisely what Arthur Brooks misses in his Free Press essay entitled "It's 2028: AI Has Made You Much Happier." Brooks imagines a future in which artificial intelligence frees us from what he calls the "complicated" tasks of life. In fact, Brooks treats routine intellectual labor as if it were merely a nuisance – email, drafting, data work, repetitive problem sets, the slow accumulation of skill. Brooks's vision begins from a premise that the Catholic tradition has long rejected: that work is primarily a burden to be escaped. In Catholic thought, work is not an obstacle to human flourishing but one of its primary engines. It is the arena in which we cultivate moral character and responsibility. For a faithful Catholic, work is the daily practice through which we participate in Creation and contribute to the common good. A society that treats work as a problem to be eliminated misunderstands both human nature and the moral structure of ordinary life. Brooks draws a sharp line between "complicated" tasks (solvable, mechanical) and "complex" ones (relational, existential). He seems to believe that these tasks are separate. But in practice, the two are intertwined. The complicated work of preparing a lesson, grading a paper, drafting a report, or creating a budget is not separate from the meaning of teaching, mentoring, leading, consulting, strategizing, or forecasting. It is the substance of the vocation itself. When AI removes the substance, it risks removing the vocation. Brooks fails to see that these tasks are not incidental to learning; they are the learning itself. In celebrating a future where artificial intelligence liberates us from what Brooks calls "busywork" or routine tasks, he treats such work as spiritually empty. Yet the Catholic tradition sees the opposite: the slow, repetitive labor of writing, revising, practicing, quantifying, memorizing, and persevering is how our intellect is shaped. It is how we build character and discipline and learn to take on responsibility. A world in which AI performs all the "busy work" of an online college class – as Einstein promises – may make students feel momentarily happier to be released from what they may see as the "drudgery" of responding to discussion prompts and textbook questions. But it will not make them wiser. And it risks hollowing out the very disciplines that prepare us for the deeper, "complex" dimensions of life that Brooks claims to prize. When students are introduced to Einstein, they are assured that Einstein is an AI with a computer. He logs into Canvas every day, watches lectures, reads essays, writes papers, participates in discussions, and submits your homework automatically. While Einstein assures students that "he will work while you sleep," critics have suggested that "at a very basic level, Einstein was simply a distillation of what more general-purpose AI chatbots or agents already offer to students: the capacity to cease learning anything at all or doing any academic work for themselves, while retaining the prospect of still earning a university degree." The greater mistake in Brooks' "AI Happiness Theory" is the assumption that leisure, rather than work, is the primary engine of human flourishing. The Catholic tradition has always insisted on the opposite: that meaningful work orders the soul toward purpose. As far back as 1963, Josef Pieper warned in his book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture , that a culture obsessed with escaping work eventually loses the capacity for genuine leisure – the kind of leisure that flows from an interior life that has been shaped by purpose and discipline. When we tre...

By Brad Miner Yes. But so have many people been throughout history. And now some good news, although it's the only good news. The Pew Research Center recently released a report, What Do Americans Consider Immoral? (We should be cautious about that verb, consider. I suppose pollsters can't really ask the more pointed question, "What actions do you engage in that you know to be morally wrong?") And the good news is that a whopping 90% of Americans believe adultery ("Married people having an affair") is wrong. Let's look at Pew's chart: As I say, good news. Yet we might compare this with recent reports from the General Social Survey and the Institute for Family Studies that say 20% of married men and 13% of married women have cheated on their spouses, and that these data have been consistent for three decades. Of course, opinion doesn't necessarily comport with behavior. This is called hypocrisy. And the numbers represent an upward trend, although not dramatically so, and the rise is being driven by men and women over 55. Does this suggest that the old notion of a 7-year itch has become a 27-year itch? In any case, this deviation from 90% opposition to adultery is significant. But, perhaps, it means nothing more than that only 70% of men actually think adultery is immoral, and 87% of women do. I'm not a statistician, so I can't vouch for those numbers. But hypocrisy is certainly at work here, and some of those who state their opposition to adultery may cross the line into an affair if tempted by the right person – or by the Tempter himself. The old joke about economists (and it might apply to statisticians) is that they should have one of their hands cut off so they can't say, "But on the other hand . . ." But on the other hand (I can use the phrase because I'm not an economist), the Pew report's index notes that no matter what religion a person is, 90% oppose adultery. Religion matters. Most disheartening are the data in the chart concerning abortion. The "not morally wrong" response to "having an abortion" stands at 52%, which is a sickening reminder that most people have been beguiled into believing that thing in the womb is not their son or daughter. Another chart at the Pew website indicates that "Republicans are 3 times as likely to say having an abortion is morally wrong." GOP members are 71% opposed; Dems only 24% opposed. Not to get political. . . The overall tone of the report is depressing. One can't help thinking that "tolerance" in America is on a slippery slide towards perdition. When it comes to pornography, for instance, only White Evangelical Protestants are steadfastly opposed (80%), whereas among Catholics (white and Hispanic), only 56% think the naked cavorting in videos is morally wrong. Could it be that we Catholics have been desensitized by all those nude figures on the Sistine Chapel ceiling? I doubt it. Only 23% of Jews think porn is morally wrong, and that may be because those good people are Republicans. Sixty-five percent in the GOP think porn is wrong; only 39% of Dems do. Twice as many Republicans as Democrats oppose marijuana, but that's not saying much, since approval in both parties is very high; 69% v. 84%. But I'll tell you what, the thing that really struck home for me is what the report's data says about contraception. This would appear to be a battle the Roman Catholic Church has lost. Just 9% of Americans believe artificial birth control is wrong; among Catholics, it's a merely better 13%. No doubt this is a measure of failed catechesis and Biblical ignorance. After all: God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth." (Genesis 1:28) That's, you know, in the beginning – just two short verses after the creation of humankind! There's no silver lining here, but I will note that only Catholics and black Protestan...

By Michael Pakaluk "And it came to pass – when Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tables of the testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount – that Moses knew not that the skin of his face sent forth beams while He talked with him." (Exodus 34:29-30) This is the best translation I can find of these verses from the Jewish Publication Society of 1917: The skin of his face sent forth beams. It's a great translation because it leaves open an ambiguity in the Hebrew. Were these beams of light, or of something else? Famously, St. Jerome in the Vulgate rendered the word for "beams" with extreme literalness as "horns": "And when Moses came down from the mount Sinai, he held the two tables of the testimony, and he knew not that his face was horned from the conversation of the Lord." (Douay-Rheims) That's why Michelangelo's Moses displays horns. But other venerable translators rendered otherwise, as for instance the Septuagint: "Moses knew not that the appearance of the skin of his face was glorified." Moses's skin was radiant with unreflected light, anticipating, then, how he would appear at the Transfiguration. It's not a silly mistake to suppose that Moses grew horns. In the ancient world, including throughout the Hebrew Bible, horns were an image of power and honor. And yet, that the Hebrew locates the beams explicitly in the skin of Moses's face tips the scales decisively, to my mind. Horns, after all, must grow out from the skull, at the top of the head, not from the skin on the face. Try to imagine Michelangelo's statue with horns growing out from all over Moses's face. But I say all this by way of preface. Assume that Moses's face indeed radiated powerful beams of light. Such was the effect of his being in the presence of God. The question then arises for us: Should Catholics expect that attendance at Mass, where God becomes truly present, will have a similar effect on them? At a Mass, we "are not come to a mountain that might be touched, and a burning fire" (Hebrews 12:18), but to something even greater. Let's make the question more focused. The Easter Triduum, which we have just celebrated, comprises the holiest days and the greatest liturgies of the year. Did your presence and mine at these liturgies leave an impression of holiness upon us? What I have in mind is a generalized effect which is independent of our will, our actions, our emotions, or our merit. I am thinking of an effect that operates not unlike a physical cause. The effect I have in mind would come not from our "participation" at these liturgies – that is, what we sing or say, or our standing or kneeling. The reception of Our Lord in Holy Communion, of course, implies a wellspring of countless graces. But I am not interested, here, in that effect, but in something else. I mean, rather, this logic: you are in the presence of holy things, and, as a result, you are made holy. Plato thought that punishment worked like that. To punish someone justly, he said, is to impose the formal character of justice on his soul, regardless of whether the sufferer wills to be made just or not. This is why punishment is medicinal, he thought. Someone treated justly will become more just as a result. We clearly believe that nature works like that. We go out into the wilderness for a few days, hiking and camping, in part because we believe that we are made better, through being "in nature," because we are made more like the purity and wildness we find there. We think that children are like that, too. We spend time with children, in part, because we think that from being in their presence, we become more youthful, more full of life, and more innocent. They "leave an impression" upon us. We use clothing to bear witness to an effect like that: we place a white garment on a newly baptized infant to signify the holy effect of Baptism. People used to dress up to go to church, yes, to show respect, but also to display what they believed the sacred liturgy made o...

By Stephen P. White. Beginning in 1979, Pope John Paul II took up the habit of writing an annual letter to priests which would be published on, or just before, Holy Thursday. These letters allowed John Paul II an outlet for repeated meditation on the nature of the priesthood. Read together, they provide a detailed account of his understanding of the priesthood and thus, necessarily, of both himself and the Lord. The tone of these letters was always fraternal. He wrote, not as a superior addressing his subordinates, but as a priest writing to priests about common concerns, hopes, fears, and joys. These were letters among brothers. As he put it in his first letter, "I think of you all the time, I pray for you, with you I seek the ways of spiritual union and collaboration, because by virtue of the sacrament of Orders, which I also received from the hands of my Bishop. . . .you are my brothers." He went on, cribbing from St. Augustine: "I want to say to you today: 'For you I am a Bishop, with you I am a Priest.'" Holy Thursday, of course, is a natural occasion for reflections on the nature of the ministerial priesthood, being the day on which Christ Himself instituted both the Eucharist and the order of the priesthood which flows from and serves that same reality. And as one might expect, writing to the same audience every year on the same occasion, in the same liturgical setting, leads to some thematic repetition. But reading these letters together allows us to see, precisely in that repetition, what Pope John Paul II saw as most important to share with his brother priests. In his first letter, in 1979, John Paul wrote of the importance of priestly perseverance, not only as a matter of personal fidelity, but as an example and witness to those whose vocation leads them along a different sacramental path: Our brothers and sisters joined by the marriage bond have the right to expect from us, Priests and Pastors, good example and the witness of fidelity to one's vocation until death, a fidelity to the vocation that we choose through the sacrament of Orders just as they choose it through the sacrament of Matrimony. (Emphasis original) This theme of perseverance and fidelity emerges again and again in the Holy Thursday letters. When one remembers that tens of thousands of men voluntarily left the priesthood in the decade following the Second Vatican Council (and the subsequent collapse in Catholic marriage rates across most of the West) Pope John Paul II's words take on an added significance. During the Great Jubilee of 2000, Pope John Paul II wrote his Holy Thursday Letter from the Cenacle, the Upper Room, in Jerusalem. This letter is especially poignant, both because of the setting from which it was sent – the physical space with all its tangible reminders of the historical events we commemorate in this season – but because of his sense of the human inadequacy of the men God calls to be priests: Many times, the human frailty of priests has made it hard to see in them the face of Christ. Here in the Upper Room why should this amaze us? Not only did the betrayal of Judas reach its climax here, but Peter himself had to reckon with his weakness as he heard the bitter prediction of his denial. In choosing men like the Twelve, Christ was certainly under no illusions: it was upon this human weakness that he set the sacramental seal of his presence. And Paul shows us why: "We bear this treasure in earthen vessels, so that it might be clear that this extraordinary power comes from God and not from us." (2 Corinthians 4:7) The frailty of men was not a stumbling block for Pope John Paul II's view of the priesthood; it was an entry point into the mystery of Christ's own priesthood. The Word Incarnate washes the feet of sinners. He pays out his life in service and sacrifice. And He invites us all – and his priests in a unique way – to do the same. Great indeed is the mystery of which we have been made ministers. A mystery of love without limi...

By Brad Miner. "The sculptor arrives at his end by taking away what is superfluous." – Michelangelo to Benedetto Varchi, 1549 The greatest artist of the Renaissance is famous for something he may never have said: "I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free." There are other versions of the quotation, as in the epigraph above, that are genuine, and they may seem to suggest that Michelangelo believed he merely liberated a form trapped in stone. Anyone who has visited the Accademia in Florence will appreciate the idea, because resident in the Hall of Prisoners there are Michelangelo's "slaves" – unfinished sculptures intended for the never-constructed tomb of Pope Julius II. The figures do seem to be struggling to escape: But stone is stone – even though quarks within are in constant, rapid motion – and the block of marble won't cough up a statue like a cat disgorging a hairball. It takes the mind, muscle, and imagination of a sculptor, not to mention his hands and eyes, to chisel a statue into existence. Thorne Smith, American humorist of the Great Depression (most famous for Topper), wrote a screwball comedy called The Night Life of the Gods (1931) in which an amateur scientist discovers a way, Medusa-like, to turn living matter into stone and vice versa. He animates sculptures of the Greek gods in New York's Metropolitan Museum, who escape to the streets of Manhattan. Chaos and hilarity follow. The ancient Greeks and Romans made sculptures, and they painted them. Some of that statuary still exists, and even more was standing or lying about in Rome in Michelangelo's time, at which point (as today) the paint (polychrome) had long ago worn off, and an erroneous theory arose in Renaissance Italy that classical artists glorified in the purity of plain, white stone. That has mostly remained the standard for figurative sculpture ever since. For Michelangelo, Carrara marble was the ideal medium, and, as the MET Museum's Carmen C. Bambach writes, he spent: long stretches of time on-site at the marble quarries in Carrara and Pietrasanta, where he not only selected marbles and gave precise orders regarding the sizes and shapes of the blocks being quarried, but even concerned himself with the building of roads to transport the stone. And that Tuscan quarry was the same one used by the Romans and is still used today. Michelangelo lived a long time – 88 years. At 13, he was apprenticed to Domenico Ghirlandaio, a very fine painter, but this most famous of his students was more interested in stone than paint. At 15, Michelangelo joined the school of the Florentine sculptor Bertoldo di Giovanni. This was a savvy move because Bertoldo's patron was Lorenzo de' Medici, ill Magnifico. It was Leonardo da Vinci who wrote in one of his notebooks (likely comparing himself to his mentor, Andrea del Verrocchio): "Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his teacher." Michelangelo certainly outshone Ghirlandaio and Bertoldo. One may debate which of Michelangelo's sculptures is his greatest, but, in my opinion, it's his Pietà. His David (also at the Accademia) is the most imposing, especially when you see it in person: it's 17 feet tall. His Moses (about which I've written here) has fascinated many, not least Sigmund Freud. But Pietà is best. Pietà means "pity," but in the secondary sense in English: "tenderness and concern aroused by the suffering or misfortune of another; compassion, sympathy." (O.E.D.) Unlike many other artists of the Renaissance, nearly all of whom were Roman Catholic, Michelangelo di Lodovico Buonarroti Simoni was among the most Catholic, by which I mean the most devout. He has also proved to be the most catholic, by which I mean the most universally recognized and admired, although much of that is thanks to that ceiling in Rome. Pietà may also have been Michelangelo's favorite sculpture. Certainly, it's the only one he ever signed. But it's also one he hoped would make him famous. Not an unholy ambition, it s...

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza The feast day of the newest Doctor of the Church, John Henry Newman, is not his dies natalis (death) but 9th October, the day of his conversion in 1845. That date was definitive for the shape of the Catholic Church in England. So much good for the Catholic Church followed. On March 29, 1986, Scott Hahn was received into the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil. So much good for the Catholic Church followed. Praising and thanking God in Steubenville on this fortieth anniversary, some three dozen of Dr. Hahn's family, friends, colleagues and collaborators are gathering in retreat to celebrate the occasion. I consider it a great honor to be serving as chaplain. But preaching to Scott Hahn brings a measure of nervousness! It's also the twenty-fifth anniversary of the reception into the Catholic Church of John Bergsma, one of Hahn's principal colleagues at the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, which is also marking its twenty-fifth anniversary. Preaching to Bergsma runs the risk of bringing coals to Newcastle, as I have for years relied upon his four-volume commentary on the Sunday lectionary in my own homiletic preparation. Hahn, Bergsma, the St. Paul Center – much indeed for which to praise God! Hahn would be embarrassed by the comparison to St. John Henry. The two are not in the same ballpark as theologians. But in terms of impact on ordinary Catholic life? Hahn, Bergsma, and other Protestant pastors – now Catholic – have taught millions of Catholics to know the Word of God better, and thus to love it more. Add to that list Jeff Cavins of the Great Adventure Bible and the massively influential Bible-in-a-Year podcast. Twenty-five years ago, I graduated with my STB from the Gregorian in Rome, and had come to loathe the Scriptures. Not exactly. I loathed my Scripture classes, which sucked both spirit and life out of the Bible. Our Johannine course included excruciating weeks of dissecting John 2 into ever more minute fragments, so much so that it was years after ordination before I got over my aversion to preaching on the wedding at Cana. Our professor never mentioned that Augustine had written on John. The period of emaciated Scripture study is over. The leading figure in restoring the Bible to the entire Church as the "sacred page" and "soul of theology" – Vatican II's language – is certainly Joseph Ratzinger. But the St. Paul Center in Steubenville, founded in 2001 to multiply Hahn's Biblical approach, has played a key role. The books it publishes – both scholarly and popular – and the retreats it runs – especially for priests – have transformed the Catholic Biblical landscape. I grew to truly know the Scriptures – and love them – only after my theological studies were no longer impeding me. Three converts were key: the sermons of Newman and Msgr. Ronald Knox (still my favorite) and Frank Sheed's To Know Christ Jesus. (Sheed was a quasi-convert, baptized Catholic but raised Protestant.) Hahn and his happy band of former Protestants were teaching Catholics how to read and understand the Bible – and that it was the book of the Church. The Ignatius Catholic Study Bible volumes were perfect for parish Bible studies. And A Father Who Keeps His Promises is the best introduction to Hahn's covenantal theology. There was a time when I led pilgrimages to the Holy Land regularly, and Hahn's book was the required advance reading. There was a graphic of successive covenants, which I insisted pilgrims memorize, from the original couple (Adam and Eve), to the family (Noah), the tribe (Abraham), the nation (Moses), the kingdom (David), and the Church (Jesus). Hahn accompanied us along the paths of salvation. Throughout the English-speaking world, I doubt there is a parish where some of the key lay leaders have not read Rome Sweet Home, his conversion account written jointly with his wife Kimberly, or The Lamb's Supper, on the Biblical character of the Mass. Hahn's popular works, littered aplenty with painful ...

By Francis X. Maier Science is an odd theme to choose on the brink of Holy Week. Or maybe not so odd. In a way, science is miraculous. It's an expression of man's dignity and genius. It offers our species two deep satisfactions: the joy of discovering how the world works, and the means of using what we learn to improve our lives and the lives of others. It also seems to answer the "why" of things. Why do colliding atoms produce energy? Why can enough of that energy, properly channeled, vaporize an entire city like Hiroshima? And why can we even wonder about such things? The first two questions are really disguised versions of "how." To the third question, science will likewise offer a very reasonable theory of evolution: the route from chemicals in a primordial soup to the contents of a Tiffany's display window. It will explain why those chemicals might combine and morph; why some of them ended up as wildly expensive diamonds; and why those diamonds trigger favorable biological responses in the mating dance of a uniquely intelligent animal. But genuine science has the modesty to know its own limits; to acknowledge and respect other paths to truth and human fulfillment. Thus, when it comes to questions of why, science won't – because it can't – answer the Big One: Why is there anything instead of nothing? The above has already been said by others, many times. But it's nonetheless worth noting a point made by the social scientist Christian Smith in Moral, Believing Animals. There are no "non-believers." That includes hardcore atheists. We all believe in something. We all, first and often unconsciously, make a foundational assumption about the nature of the world based on our instincts, preferences, or experiences. We then build a rational framework on top of it to answer and engage the "whys" of life. As it happens, some choices are better, and some worse, than others. Scientism, for example, is not science. It's a materialist philosophy about nature dressed in scientific vestments. It's animated by the belief – a confident leap of faith – that reality is purely material "stuff" and processes. It assumes that science, at least theoretically, can someday unlock all or most of what there is to know. Thus we can properly accept an implausible but very real thing like superposition in quantum physics: the fact that a quantum particle can be there and not there, in the same place, at the same time. Nature, after all, is mysterious. But a virgin birth? A resurrection from the dead? Biblical nonsense. Here's the irony. Intellectual vanity is good news for a gifted writer. It makes a great target. Which is why the work of Arthur C. Clarke, himself a committed atheist, could draw praise from the likes of C.S. Lewis. In the early 1950s, Clarke produced a story – "The Nine Billion Names of God" – that's unforgettable and especially relevant to our reflections here. The plot is simple. A Buddhist monastery high in the Himalayas contacts an American computing firm. The monks hire two of its engineers, who then travel to install and run a computer on site. This will drastically speed up a project the monastery has been working on for 300 years: listing the nine billion names (claim the monks) of God. The engineers think this foolish. But the pay and food are good, the monks welcoming, and the scenery stunning, By day the world is endless, astonishing mountains. By night the sky is a carpet of intensely beautiful stars. The deeper "why" behind the project eventually becomes clear. When all of God's names are collected and codified, man's purpose (again, as the monks believe) will be completed, and Creation will end. The engineers suspect that when the world doesn't helpfully disappear, the monks will be unhappy – very unhappy – with them. So on the night the project nears conclusion, they slip away on horseback for the long trek to an airfield far below, and the trip back to reality. They chat affably on the way down. Then one of them fall...

By Michael Pakaluk A correct Catholic approach to AI becomes clearer, I think, if we approach a foundational text in Catholic Social Teaching, Rerum novarum, not as about structural issues in political economy, but rather as about claims on time and claims of authority. The workhouses of the Industrial Revolution, by paying only a subsistence wage to the father, forced wives and children into the factories too, destroying time for the family, the parish, and worship. And making each member of a household directly dependent upon the owner, not the father. This configuration, moreover, appeared fixed; the members of a household seemed to have no way to escape their plight as "wage slaves." A "living wage" busts this up. Pay the father enough so that he can support a family and so that they, if they live thriftily, can acquire capital over time, and the result is that the family is restored as the basic cell of society. And the father's authority too is restored. Workhouses absorbed nearly all leisure time and took authority away from parents and clerics. The living wage, when honored, returned remunerative work to its proper position of being for the sake of the family, not the family for the sake of work. Catholics face a situation today similar to the Industrial Age through what Harvard professor Shoshana Zuboff has called "surveillance capitalism." Technology in the heady days of Wunderkinder like the young Steve Jobs and Bill Gates exulted to be in the service of the value creator – the entrepreneur, the artist, the executive looking for efficiencies of scale. But in roughly the early 2000s, things got flipped, so that the user became the product. You know the maxim, "if the app is free, you are the product." We pay for ostensibly "free" services not through money, but with our time and attention. If revenue comes from targeted advertising, then, once a network of users has ceased growing organically, further growth can come only from more screen time, or from more data, leading to better prediction and more assured control of behavior. Furthermore, things get locked in. Get devices into the hands of children, and their behavior can be shaped into adulthood. You see that your child is addicted to a screen? My colleagues around the country say that students can't sit through a lecture any longer: they must "go to the bathroom" at least once an hour, a euphemism for going away to look at their phones – the way cigarette addicts used to behave. These failings are not accidents or mere weaknesses of human nature. Are our clerics paying attention here? Christians are supposed to live "in the presence of God," not in the presence of short-form videos. If we have free time, saying a prayer is a good thing to do, or visiting a church. Families are supposed to center around the fellowship among the children, not Instagram networks, and follow the culture set by parents, not influencers. Priests and bishops who are internet celebrities are like worker priests who penetrated factories after the Industrial Revolution. They do good work, to be sure, but they are not naming the fundamental problem, or contributing to the needed change in our thinking about how technology uses us. In particular, they are not helping to foment this other "paradigm change," which Zuboff has rightly said is necessary to overcome "surveillance capitalism" – the way we came to see, as a society, that cigarette addictions and polluting the environment are to be shunned. The main ethical question concerning AI chatbots, then, is not new. Will these new technologies serve as de facto fiduciaries, putting the genuine interests of the user first, or will they join forces with existing "surveillance capitalism," so that chats come to be in the service of an advertising master besides the user; and users are drawn more deeply into a web of subjective illusion? Only Anthropic among the leading companies has foresworn advertisement as a source of revenue. Anthropic ...

By Robert Royal Let's begin with a pointed question: Are we, almost all, today, Sadducees? If your knowledge of the groups who appear in the New Testament is hazy, we might put it thus: Do almost all of us now, even Christians who claim otherwise, like the Sadducees in Jesus' day, basically discount eternal life and think physical death the absolute end, and worst of evils? If so, a war may do us a service because it reveals, in its dreadful and severe way, the state of our souls. War is hell. But does Hell – a place of eternal war – or Heaven – the place of the only true and lasting peace – play any real role in our minds and hearts during a time like this? It may seem heartless to ask the question in the face of so much immediate suffering, but it's precisely because of those human ills that the deeper questions come to the fore. As C.S. Lewis put it in a similar time: "The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it." No one should want war except as an absolute necessity for the gravest reasons. Totalitarians love war because they often think it's a remedy for the flabbiness that overtakes people when things are good. Mussolini said that the modern Italians needed a "bloodbath" to recover their ancient discipline and virtue. And he tried giving them one. We know how that, like other programs of renewal through war, turned out. Peace and prosperity are goods in themselves, but they're not always good for us. Europe's dependence on the United States for its security since World War II, for instance, made it into a continent that finds it difficult to find the will or allocate the resources to defend itself. Many Europeans – and sadly not a few Americans now – even doubt whether it's worth defending our civilization. A Christian shouldn't be surprised. "In his riches, man lacks wisdom: he is like the beasts that are destroyed." (Psalm 49:20) It doesn't have to be this way. We may be wise even in prosperity. But reason and revelation alike warn of dangers. Just now, we're rightly preoccupied not only about the justice of the Iran war, but also about its possible spread – along with terrorism. And we try to imagine what a "successful" end might be. We can't help but doubt what we're told by politicians and the media. But in all this, do we lose sight of the truth that neither war nor peace is the last word for us? Our Christian forbears didn't need to ask this basic question because, until quite recently, bodily death was not considered the worst thing. Some things are worth dying for. Most people knew anyway from daily experience that our years on earth are sharply limited, war or not. And that the next life is, for good or ill, forever. The traditional classification of sins and virtues reflected this. We cite Dante a lot on this page because. . .one just should, for many reasons. Besides the sheer imaginative beauty of his Divine Comedy, he makes it easy to see crucial distinctions, Christian distinctions, about the state of the soul, both in this life and the next. For instance, sins of violence and murder are, of course, punished in Inferno, but only about midway down into Hell. There are good reasons in the Christian tradition for this. In the proper Christian understanding, we are a composite of body and soul. Murder or indiscriminate slaughter in war are, to be sure, horrible. But a Certain Authoritative Person made a point of saying (twice): "Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in Hell." (Matthew 10:28, Luke 12:4-5) We rarely hear this these days, even from the highest authorities in the Church. Which is why both just war and capital punishment now appear "inadmissible" to some Church authorities. If you believe in eternal life and the greater importance of the soul than physical life, however, there are still plenty of worse things than the bodily death, wh...

By David Warren In an effort to understand Hieronymus Bosch, I have been reading about the "movers and shakers" who first conceived of our modern world. Bosch presents the fantasies of these heretics, I think, without being entirely a heretic himself. It is easier to see a heresy from a mile off than when it is right up your nose. Or if you are an ingenious, astounding artist, like Bosch, you can examine it closely. In his book, The Millennium of Hieronymus Bosch (translated, 1952), the author Wilhelm Franger reconstructs that past age by visiting the episcopal courts, and in particular their records of former hippiedoms and heresies. Especially in the XIIIth and XIVth centuries, they were the paradisal, gnostic cults that flourished across what would become Germany, the Rhineland, and the Low Countries, being known generally by some variation on the theme of "Brothers and Sisters of the Free Spirit." These self-proclaimed "Homines Intelligentiae" met literally underground, and were the "Woke" or "Wokists" of that time, believing themselves incarnations of the Holy Ghost, and very devoted – to their own esoteric and changeable notions. But they were not truly creative. Their "paradise" would always, always depart, generally through corruption and lust, from what exists in a true paradise, or in the witness of the real Mother of God. They strayed from reality, just as modern communists compulsively dictate a parody of the Christian faith. A violent and evil parody, but an assurance nonetheless that there is an order to this world, and nature. Each deviant movement falls back upon the same cosmic or spiritual shapes and volumes that, I believe, are inevitably representations of immortal things. This is because we are in a world and nature that is, and thus was constructed, from reality. There is no alternative, in effect, to being a copyist, if there is only one reality to copy, vast and complex as that reality may be. And one may depict it accurately, in art and in science, or try to improve upon it, and thereby produce something that is definitively wrong. We thus discover alternative realities, but on close investigation we rather unearth a zero, a form of Nothingness. The mediaeval scholastics realized that this Nothing is like extreme cold. It is not really an alternative thing, but rather it is the absence of a thing, in this case heat or light. It does not add, but subtracts; and when it has taken everything away, everything is, as it were, frozen in darkness. And as heat is added – a little or a lot – we begin to see all of nature's effects coming to life, or being spontaneously exemplified. The same happens when we turn to theology, or even to politics (to present politics in its religious form). As heat is removed – the heat of the divine – everything instead begins to resemble everything else. To use the commonplace analogy of deep space, there is no such thing as taking a spacewalk, unless for a very short period one is supplied with warmth and everything else one will need within a hygienically sealed and fitted suit. Curiously, it is the same on moonwalks, or if one visits Mars. In practical terms, the expense of supplying everything we need to flourish upon earth is, and will always be, very, very expensive. The same goes if, instead of spacewalk or starwalk (even if we could get to the neighboring star in less than an eternity), we decide to replace our religion, and invent a new one more attractive to ourselves (and not just attractive to an ever-absent God), we get to the point where we are freezing. The Adamites and other heretical cells, from centuries ago or just the other day, found that they were dealing with a world in which there are two, and precisely two, "biological" sexes. And after one has decided on the quaint, nonsensical principle of making them equal and interchangeable, or inventing some others, or putting clothes on them or stripping them bare, and calling, for instance, nudity by the word...

By Stephen P. White I have what I like to think of as a healthy obsession with bulbs. I don't mean the kind you screw into an electric lamp. I mean flower bulbs: tulips, hyacinth, daffodils, crocuses, snowdrops, and the like. I bury them in the dirt in the autumn. And as soon as the frozen ground softens to mud, green things start to emerge. While the rest of the world (the lingering snow by the curb included) thinks it is still winter, the bulbs are having none of it. The bulbs are unstoppable. Once the bulbs emerge – those little green nibs, sometimes tinged wine-red – there's no going back. Winter is finished, and all the cold snaps and late-season snow showers are in vain. As we say in our family every year when the first crocuses appear, "Aslan is on the move." The arrival of spring, of course, is a metaphor for resurrection. Here we are in Lent and what we see around us in nature parallels our Lenten journey. The first flowers of spring are heralds of the coming joys of Easter. The bulbs that "died" and were buried have emerged more glorious and alive than ever. And so every child knows. At least, it used to be so. I hope children still learn such things. Right now, winter is losing the same battle it loses every March. And just like every year, the bulbs are pushing the sodden soil aside and emerging clean, startlingly green, and swollen with new life. Somehow the arrival of spring bulbs, the sheer newness of them, is always startling. I know from the calendar that spring is coming, of course. And I planted those bulbs precisely so that I could see them in the spring. Yet spring arrives and these living things that were not there before (at least not to my eyes) push up through the cold, sweet-smelling earth with a contagious, irrepressible vitality. One could almost believe that the spring sun grows warmer because of the emerging flowers rather than the other way round. Every spring somehow feels like the first. I recall lines about spring from Gerard Manley Hopkins: What is all this juice and all this joy? A strain of the earth's sweet being in the beginning In Eden garden… But it happens again and again, over and over. Every year, the bulbs drive winter away. Every year, these little floral gems emerge, looking like the newest things in all Creation. Every year, nature's metaphor for resurrection plays out in plain view. Every year, it is startling to see something so utterly new under the sun. And here is another metaphor, one that is subtler and harder to learn than the first. A metaphor that has taken me many springs – many Lents and many Easters – to understand. It is a metaphor about old things and new things. About things past made present. About grace and nature. About creation and repetition. About the shocking newness and gratuity of something utterly predictable and expected. The Lord said: Amen, amen, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it dies, it produces much fruit. The seed goes down into the ground. It dies. But then it rises again to bear much fruit. The bulb is buried under dirt and snow and ice. From that death, a glorious new blossom emerges. So far so good. If we were to see this happen once, and only once, we would think it a miracle. If it happens over and over and over again, is it less miraculous? The Lord said: Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life. An innocent man lays down his life. He dies. He rises again to new life, eternal life. A man takes bread and wine, blesses them, and gives them to his disciples; his body and blood. If it happens once, it is a miracle. But what if that same miracle is made present to us, not once, but over and over and over again? This metaphor, if you can follow me, gets closer to what I love about spring bulbs. This implacable repetition of the miracle, the outrageous made so commonplace we might hardly notice, is wh...

By Robert Royal When Notre Dame de Paris almost burned down in 2019, owing to a fire started (accidentally?) by workmen, the world was stunned by the near loss of one of the West's iconic monuments – and a religious landmark at that. But churches around the world are burned or subjected to other types of attack these days, year after year, not by accident, but deliberate anti-Christian acts. Never heard of it? Thereby hangs a tale. It's no surprise to anyone that Christian churches suffer frequent attacks in Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East, Africa, and Asia. They've been going on for years, with a sharp rise since 9/11 and the emergence of radical Islamic groups, as I've documented in my book The Martyrs of the New Millennium. And these attacks often add insult to injury by being timed to take place at major Christian feasts like Christmas and Easter. What is surprising, however, is how little attention is paid to the ongoing violence by Western media. In Nigeria, the wholesale slaughter of Christians – thousands in 2025 – and the assaults on churches and Christian schools, together with kidnappings and ransom demands – couldn't be ignored any longer by news outlets and governments. But the plight of Christians in a dozen other countries never draws serious attention. That failure clearly has a two-fold cause: reluctance among journalists – newsrooms are overwhelmingly progressive – to contribute to "Islamophobia," and a soft anti-Christian bigotry. The American political scientist Samuel Huntington asserted that Islam has "bloody borders," evident not just from recent times but the long interactions between Islam and Christians, Hindus, etc.) Modern analysts often try to deny that these conflicts are religious – in a materialist age political and economic causes are believed to be real, religious motives at best secondary. But the only way to believe that is to be ignorant of centuries of history – and the Koran itself. Still, it's surprising that those same media also manage to pass over quickly or, more typically, to ignore outright anti-Christian acts even in the West. We need not look far for striking examples. Earlier this month in "celebration" of International Women's Day, churches in Mexico – Catholic Mexico! – came under literal fire by feminist extremists (see video here). But it's not only there. Throughout Latin America, including Argentina during the reign of Argentine Pope Francis, similar things have happened owing to feminist rage and radical ideologies of varying kinds. In Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Cuba, we've even seen the continuing saga of Marxist repression of the Church – holdovers from the totalitarian nightmares of the previous century. And those regimes are supported by old-style state Communism in China, which notoriously persecutes religion. One Mexican feminist proclaimed, "I fear those who pray the Rosary more than I fear criminals." It's heartening to see, as in Mexico, Catholic men forming human shields around Church buildings. But where was the coverage – outside of Catholic news organizations – of something that is a clear public fact about our time? It's not mere Catholic special-pleading to point out that if the target had been a synagogue or mosque, our sharp-eyed watchdogs in the press would be investigating and relentlessly reminding us about systemic prejudice. Sad to say, the Church itself has sometimes been all-too-willing to blame Catholics for past misdeeds – sometimes when they didn't even happen. In 2021, reports in Canada surfaced that ground radar had discovered over 1000 graves – sometimes called "mass graves" – near "residential schools," government institutions often run by Christians, which took "First Nation" children from their parents and tried to integrate them into the Canadian mainstream. A sensitive subject, of course. But subsequent investigations have uncovered no "mass graves." Yet many people – including Pope Francis, who made an apologetic visit t...

By Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, Like many people years ago, as a child, my brother and I, together with our dad, always prayed in our "night prayers" the traditional prayer to our guardian angels: "Angel of God, my guardian dear to whom God's love entrusts me here, ever this day (or night) be at my side, to light and guard, to rule and guide. Amen." I still ask my guardian angel at night when I go to bed and, in the morning, when I get up, to watch over and protect me. Moreover, before writing, I always ask my guardian angel to give me clarity of thought and expression and to whisper the right words into my ears. Sometimes when I am struggling to find the right word, he places exactly the right word in my mind. Prayers to one's guardian angel are Biblically based: • God instructs Moses, as the Israelites set off for the Promised Land: "Behold I send you an angel before you, to guard you on the way and bring you to the place which I have prepared. Give heed to him and hearken to his voice." (Exodus 23:20-21). • Psalm 91:11 affirms that one need not fear, "for he (God) will give his angels charge over you to guard you in all your ways." • Jesus himself states that we should not despise the little ones, "for I tell you that in heaven their angels always behold the face of my Father who is in heaven." (Matthew 18:10) • In the Acts of the Apostles, when Peter escapes from prison and knocks on the door where the faithful were gathered, his brethren wrongly think: "It is his angel!" (Acts 12:13-15) Although most of us will never see our guardian angels, many saints have. Padre Pio frequently conversed with his guardian angel, who would defend him against demonic attacks. Gemma Galgani was in daily contact with her guardian angel, who taught, protected, and corrected her. Sr. Faustina Kowalska spoke of her guardian angel accompanying her on her journeys. She also saw him when she was immersed in prayer, often asking her to pray for the dying. The point of the above examples is not to say that one has to be a "saint" to speak with or behold one's guardian angel. Rather, it is to illustrate that we, too, can converse with and be assured of our guardian angel's protecting and guiding presence. Moreover, we should dispel the romantic and "cute" notion that guardian angels are only relevant for vulnerable children. Adults are in as much need of their guardian angels – maybe even more so, for their temptations and affairs are often of a more serious nature. Our guardian angels are therefore present to strengthen, to encourage, and to guide us in living out our respective vocations, whether single, married, religious, or priestly. To dismiss them as only suited for what is childish is to place ourselves in harm's way. The question has been asked: After death, do our guardian angels cease to be with us once we enter into Heaven? Obviously, we no longer need to be guarded. Do they, then, get recycled to someone newly conceived? According to Catholic tradition, our guardian angels even remain with us in Heaven and together we give praise and glory to the most holy Trinity – to our heavenly Father who is the ultimate source of life, to the risen Jesus, the Father's incarnate Son, who is our loving Savior and Lord, and to the Holy Spirit who cleanses us of sin and makes us holy. With all of our brothers and sisters in Christ, along with our respective guardian angels, we will sing forever a glorious hymn of praise and thanksgiving. Here, we perceive the confluence of the earthly and the heavenly liturgy. At the conclusion of the Preface at Mass the following, or something similar, is said: "And so, with the Angels and all of the Saints we declare your (the Father's) glory, as with one voice we acclaim: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God of hosts. Heaven and earth are full of your glory." With one voice, our earthly human voices, the heavenly voices of the saints, and the host of angelic voices, we all together declare that both Heaven and earth are filled...

By Michael Pakaluk. The New York Times reported the words, but the Wall Street Journal didn't. When Bam Adebayo, two days ago, was asked to describe the moment when he scored 83 points in an NBA game, second only to Wilt Chamberlain's 100 points, he said, "Man, I wish I could relive it twice. I credit God, my family, my teammates, this crowd." A wag commented that, right after God, he should have credited the Washington Wizards, the team ostensibly defending him. But credit, too, to Bam. The first question most sportscasters ask is "How did you feel?" On the classical view of the passions, this is like asking someone to describe the agitation of his guts, either his viscera or heart. "Describe to me what your guts felt like when you did this." Who cares? But Bam sensibly externalized the question and turned first to God. Others credited Bam's hard work, recounting the long hours he put in as a boy, practicing. Others played up the fact that he had just surpassed Kobe Bryant's record of 81. But Bam sprinted right past the four species of pride identified by Pope St. Gregory. He attributed his excellence to God, not himself. He did not claim that he had merited it. He did not overstate it. And he did not draw comparisons with others. Like all of us, he'll need to battle pride later. But just then, when the spotlight was on him and the cameras were rolling, he spoke with humility. You've noticed that athletes often give credit to God first. Fernando Mendoza, the 2025 Heisman Trophy winner and quarterback who led Indiana to the college football championship, when he was in the spotlight said, "This moment is bigger than me. [sic] First, I want to thank God." Kudos to Mendoza, who is said to be a devout Catholic. By mentioning God first, outside his intention he actually amplified himself. If he had said out loud what many think privately at such a moment, "First, I want to exult in how great I am," he would have drawn himself down in the eyes of others, deservedly so. "I'm a faith-filled guy. I believe in a Creator. I believe in Jesus. Ultimately, I think that's what defines me the most." This was Scottie Scheffler after winning the 2024 Masters, another athlete side-stepping the four species of pride. The interviewer then pressed him on his feelings. Scottie refused to introspect his guts and instead changed the subject, returning to the objective message he wished to convey: "It's hard to describe the feeling. I think that what defines me the most is my faith. I believe in one Creator, that I've been called to come out here, do my best, compete, and glorify God." I've taught many athletes and can report that the conflict that some find between athletics and academics is a false conflict. Pursuing a sport seriously can make an athlete a better student. In the same way, pursuing some sport seriously should make us better Christians. How do other achievers compare with the athletes? Over the last three years of Oscar winners, encompassing nearly 70 speeches, only two recipients referred to God, but how they did so fell short of the athletes. Last year, Adrien Brody, when he took the stage to receive the Best Actor award (for The Brutalist) said, "Thank you, God. Thank you for this blessed life." But even then, he did not quite give credit to God for his achievement. And two years ago, Da'Vine Joy Randolph (Best Supporting Actress, The Holdovers) began with "God is so good. God is so good." And she closed with "I pray to God that I get to do this more than once" – which sounds like greediness rather than gratitude. Already in 2015, a writer for the Huffington Post wrote an essay on how Oscar winners were no longer thanking God. Reviewing almost 1400 acceptance speeches, Carol Kuruvilla found that Stephen Spielberg was thanked the most, with 42 mentions. Harvey Weinstein came in second. (Res ipsa loquitur.) While God received only 19 mentions, and many of these were goofy or off-key: I'd like to thank the Academy first of all. ....

By Francis X. Maier I'll get right to the point. Leigh Snead's new book Infertile but Fruitful is one of the finest personal testimonies I've read in the past decade. It's a "simple" story in the best sense: concise, intimate, utterly frank, and memorable. It spoke, directly and beautifully, to my own family, as it will to many others. I'll come back to it in a moment. But first, some useful background. In a general sense, a culture's fertility rate hints at its character. It also suggests its health. Bearing and raising children is serious business. It demands sacrifices. But for anyone with a generous spirit, it also creates love and hope, and trust in a meaningful future, because the instinct to "be fruitful and multiply" (Genesis 1:28, 9:1) is hardwired into the human species. Rejecting that has consequences. And here's an example. The minimum replacement rate for a population is 2.1 children per woman per lifetime. The total fertility rate across Western Europe was around 2.66 in the early 1960s. It had fallen to 1.46 in the late 1990s. It continued dropping to a historic low of 1.34 by 2024. That's a fertility decline of 50 percent in barely two generations. Muslim Europeans tend to have somewhat higher fertility on average, but the broader story is nonetheless a massive, sustained collapse in childbearing across the continent. As for the United States: In the early 1960s, its fertility rate was around 3.5, sharply higher than Europe's at the time, because the American postwar Baby Boom was larger and lasted longer. But the subsequent drop off was steeper. The U.S. total fertility rate shrank to 1.59 by 2024. Thus, the net fertility decline over the past six or so decades is actually larger for the United States than Europe in absolute terms. Why the collapse? The factors are fairly obvious: easy access to contraception and abortion; more women in higher education and the workforce; the rising costs of living; a consumption-driven economy; and the decline of religious belief. Christianity strongly encouraged permanent marriages and large families. As Europe secularized, that moral pressure disappeared. Today, most children grow up seeing small families as normal. Their own fertility adjusts downward accordingly. What makes this reality so hard to reverse is that a modernity rooted in the sovereign self and its material appetites has taught so many of us to value these features. The end result is a culture's loss of meaning, an aging population with escalating health care costs, supported by a shrinking workforce. The necessary economic response to demographic decline is immigration, filling the labor gap with working-age people from higher-fertility regions. But the kind of mass immigration needed to compensate for low fertility typically sparks a bitter political backlash. This creates constant friction between economic need and grassroots popular anxiety that has impacted the life of nearly every Western nation. So much for all the social data. How does any of it relate to Infertile but Fruitful? One of the (wonderfully) ironic responses to all of the above is the number of women today, many of them religious believers, who deliberately choose to have large families. Again, fertility – the yearning to be part of bringing new life into the world – is inherent to being human. That can mean children, or a celibate life of service to others. But everyone, without exception, has the need to be fruitful, and ignoring that need deforms the heart. Our own daughter is the mother of seven. For my wife Suann, some of the hardest years in our marriage were those early eight or ten when she was unable to conceive or had multiple miscarriages; this, while friends all around her birthed child after child. Husbands can provide love and support. But they can never fully understand the suffering and sense of loss felt at a cellular level by the woman longing to bear a child, but can't. Especially when the inability to conceive prove...

By Casey Chalk I wouldn't describe myself as a "fan" of science fiction. I shrug my shoulders at Star Wars and Star Trek, and became so frustrated with Frank Herbert's Dune that I barely finished it. Nevertheless, I confess a certain guilty fascination with futuristic dystopian works. The imagery of the Australian bush and the attendant storyline of the revised Road Warrior series haunted my imagination for weeks. Much the same happened with the Blade Runner revamp. Brave New World, 1984, A Clockwork Orange. I gobble up such books up and wonder: How could human society become like that? Surely escapism explains much of this, but there is also a human desire to imagine, even anticipate, what the future holds for us and our descendants. It's a means of grappling with the most acute moral and political questions of our time, but with a certain personal and emotional distance. It's not us or our children suffering at the hands of post-apocalyptic Australian motorcycle gangs or humanoid robots with automatic weapons. This much, and far more, can be said of Ross McCullough's The Body of This Death: Letters from the Last Archbishop of Lancaster, an enchanting book that straddles a variety of genres: epistolary novel, pastoral handbook, and theological science fiction. A sort of sci-fi Screwtape Letters, the reader cannot help but be drawn into McCullough's dystopian (if frighteningly imaginable) world, in which the vestiges of liberalism accommodate an ascendant global Islam, while humanity escapes deeper into an all-consuming artificial intelligence called "IR." Yet like C.S. Lewis's classic, it's also a text bursting with spiritual and theological insight. The letters of the late archbishop certainly paint a sobering picture of a future in which the Church's influence has waned. Citizens' behaviors are carefully documented beginning in school to exert maximum control over the populace. Technological firms promote transhumanism and "transfiguration procedures" to "transfer consciousness from brain to brain." The underlying irony is that in "metamodernity," the modern Baconian quest to control the natural order is realized by fleeing nature. Priests have accommodated themselves to the new reality, leveraging IR in order to visit with more of the faithful, even if the bishop admits "there is little friendship with someone who is in IR, whether they are in the withdrawn catatonia of passive consumption or the excited catatonia of erratic and unexplained motion." It's an admirable description of the dehumanizing tendencies of social media. Or how about this: Think only of how much more control the government has over us on these platforms. Think only of those who control the platforms themselves. This is the problem when reality itself goes up for sale, when we place ourselves in a marketplace of realities. For we are not the hunters in the marketplace but the hunted. The archbishop's reflections on sexuality are equally incisive. One letter argues that AI-generated porn – presented as a means of protecting the human participants from degrading behaviors – only further encourages dehumanizing tendencies, because users of such material are free to do whatever they want within the "safe" world of IR. It's not real, though the effects on the human brain and character certainly are. Elsewhere, the archbishop describes a "second Pill" that was developed to allow sexual partners to not feel any attachment to one another. In a twisted way, that makes sense. Obviously, a baby complicates sex, but so does the unitive quality of the sexual act, which binds people together in complicated ways, even if both tried to keep things "casual." McCullough hints at a panoply of terrifying future possibilities. He describes a procedure ironically titled "transfiguration" that involves removing the patient's eyes and entering the orbital cavities, which subjects "generally come to approve of." The result is "lobotomized rebels" similar to what (lapsed Ca...

By Daniel B. Gallagher. The 250th birthday of the United States is a good time to remember that 1776 was the year of a new nation, not a new government. It would take another eleven years for the Founders to formulate what the government would look like, and two more to elect the first president. This sequence of events reminds us that it is not a government that makes a nation, but a nation that makes a government. Even peoples who lack a sovereign territory, such as the Kurds or Basques, conceptualize themselves in some way as a nation before devising some sort of governing apparatus. You need something to govern before you can figure out how to govern it. The Vichy regime in France is an example of what can happen if one attempts to establish a government with no true nation behind it. Having been around long enough to celebrate both, I can't help but feel concern about the disquietude surrounding this year's Semiquincentennial celebration in comparison with the Bicentennial fifty years ago. Last summer, a White House task force appointed to plan and to implement the celebrations was already butting heads with a congressional commission established for the same purpose. John Dichtl, president of the American Association for State and Local History, has a point when, referring to plans to host an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) at the White House, asks, "What does a (UFC) fight have to do with America's greatness?" Writing in The Hill, Myra Adams confesses that she feels "less pride" in this Semiquincentennial year, lamenting that "dangerous trends threaten what our Founding Fathers envisioned." Back in 1976, virtually no one hesitated to wave a flag, march in a parade, and join in singing "My Country, 'Tis of Thee." And all this not even two years after an American President voluntarily stepped aside for the first time. Fifty years later, students no longer recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the elementary school I attended. That said – and especially in light of recent chaos in Minneapolis – I do understand how people could lack enthusiasm for the event if they forget we are celebrating the founding of a nation and not a government. The former is much more worthy of celebration if we take it as the primary locus of the shared values and ideals inspiring a diverse people to form a Union. Chief among those is obviously freedom, including the freedom to vote Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, Independent, or even Communist or Socialist, if you like. If you want to know what a one-party celebration looks like, look no further than the Tian'anmen and Kim II Sung Squares. The need to revisit the distinction between a nation and a government became clearer to me when, while interviewing political theorist Patrick Deneen, Bishop Robert Barron asserted that, according to the classical view, the purpose of "government" is to cultivate virtue in its citizens. He claimed to have learned this from philosopher Robert Sokolowski at the Catholic University of America. Msgr. Sokolowski was my professor too, and I don't remember him saying this. I do remember him saying that, according to the classical view, the purpose of the polis was to make citizens virtuous and good. That's not to say government has no role, but the polis is a richer and more expansive concept than "government," even though the extent to which the ancient Greek polis resembles the modern state is debatable. In any case, a polis, according to Aristotle, is a natural community where individuals come together to pursue the good life. The politeia is the way a polis is organized, including – but not limited to – its system of government. Politeia also encompasses the values and practices that make a polis possible. Though much more can be said about the distinction, it is enough to draw attention to the myopic view of "politics" we have today. If we limit politics to what happens inside the D.C. beltway, we easily fall into the trap of thinking that it is primaril...

By Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky. The Transfiguration reveals the mystery of Christ's Person. In His glorified body, He stands as the fulfillment of the Law with Moses and of the Prophets with Elijah. He is the beloved Son of the Father, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity. Yet Tabor cannot be separated from Calvary, nor Calvary from Easter morning. The Apostles could not grasp this at once. Comprehension required time, memory, and grace. What was revealed had to be received before it could be understood. This pattern is woven into human life itself: mystery first, then revelation, then understanding. And even understanding does not exhaust mystery; it opens us to still more. This same pattern governs ordinary experience. A young man may take up manual work without fully knowing why. Skill comes slowly – through correction, repetition, and trust in those who know more than he does. Eventually, he produces something solid and recognizable as his own – perhaps just a table. Yet even so, he did not create from nothing. His achievement rests on instruction, materials, discipline, and the wisdom of others. What he makes is truly his, but it is not his alone. Our vocations follow a similar path. We consider whether our lives should follow marriage, single life, or religious life. The answer rarely comes with initial certainty. Discernment requires observation and testing. Motives must be examined. Decisions arise from attention to circumstances and to God's direction. As understanding of one's vocation grows, it can reveal deeper questions about purpose, service, and God's plan. Clarity comes only through disciplined inquiry. Once a vocation is assumed, it requires continuity. Fidelity depends on discipline and consistent effort. The vocation is not our voice. Properly discerned, it is the voice of God. We manage His plan for us as stewards. Responsibility stems from our performing what is assigned, rather than imposing our personal agendas. The more we understand our vocation, the more we become aware of its depth and participation in broader mysteries. Intellectual inquiry, too, follows a comparable pattern. Integrating the sacraments with daily living, harmonizing faith and reason, is difficult. Atheists drive a wedge between faith and reason. Atheists commonly argue that the available evidence does not warrant belief in God. They argue that material processes, evolution, and chance explain existence. But the very existence of the universe raises questions. It is ordered and intelligible. Scientific investigation presupposes that reality is coherent. The question is not whether mechanisms operate. They do. But why is the world structured in such a way that makes rational investigation possible? Understanding in science does not exhaust mystery; it directs reflection toward the transcendent source of intelligibility. A clock does not assemble itself. Its ordered parts presuppose intelligence. So too the intelligibility of the universe points beyond itself. The questions raised by atheists, pursued honestly, lead not to the dismissal of a Divine Clockmaker but toward a deeper appreciation of Him. Acknowledging a Creator raises another question: Has He revealed Himself? The Christian claim is that He has: through Israel's history, through the life and teaching of Christ, and through the Church's witness. Faith relies on testimony. It allows understanding to develop without eliminating mystery, and each insight opens us to deeper truths of God's plan. Suffering, of course, presents a persistent challenge. Atheists commonly ask, "How can an all-good God allow the presence of evil?" A child with cancer presents the reality with terrible clarity. Suffering itself is not morally evil. It is our encounter with disorder, deprivation, and the effects of sin. No argument removes the fact of suffering. Even an atheist cannot explain away the mystery. The protest against suffering presupposes that things ought to be otherwise. How does an ath...

Jason Walker breaks down the news about Utah State men's basketball guard Deyton Albury entering the transfer portal. What could have led to his departure and what's next for Jerrod Calhoun and the Aggies?

Eric Frandsen and Jason Walker visit with Keith Shirts from Hive State Hockey about the Utah Hockey Club.Former Aggie Steven Ashworth in the College Basketball 3-point shootout.Latest RPI rankings of Region 11 teams in spring sports.Pick 6

by Pastor Walt Barrett

A Recovery community in Tupelo called Thrive met at Origins this week. We talked about doubt and faith, and how they're more closely related than we like to admit.

"A Dead Girl and a Sick Woman" Pastor Paul Thompson Matthew 9:18-26

Psalm 18:1-3