…is tricky.It is the genius of post-Reformation polemic that a word meaning “universal” has taken on the connotation of something as narrow as a sect. Of course, the Prophet Chesterton gets what’s really going on: But in a much more profound and philosophical sense this notion that the Church is one of the sects is the great fallacy of the whole affair. It is a matter more psychological and more difficult to describe. But it is perhaps the most sensational... Read more

…about Galileo. Turn out he did other stuff besides inadvertantly be the poster boy for proponents of scientism centuries after his death. He was what our ancestors used to call “irrascible” (i.e., a pain in the neck) and made enemies, not so much for being a valiant champion of Scientific Truth as for being said pain in neck. The difficulty with the worship of Science proposed in the 19th Century and adopted by many people in the 20th is that... Read more

Pat Madrid reports that the Legionaries are selling the Register. I’m glad. Dunno who’s buying, but Pat seems happy, so that’s good enough for me. Read more

A reader writes: I hope this is not too late. I am asking for intercession from Terence Cardinal Cooke for my little cousin, Julien, who is gravely ill with graft-vs-host disease from a bone marrow transplant that he received a couple of years ago. He was suffering from the same sort of cancer that Cardinal Cooke had. Please pray for him, and all the family and friends who love him. Father, hear our prayer for Julien’s complete healing through Jesus... Read more

for a dear friend whose sister is battling cancer. Many thanks! Read more

Nominations are now open for the 2011 About.com Catholicism Readers’ Choice Awards! On the About.com Catholicism Readers’ Choice Awards Nomination Form, you will find ten categories: • Best Catholic Book of 2010 • Best Catholic Blog • Best Catholic Website • Best Catholic Podcast • Best Catholic Magazine • Best Catholic Newspaper • Best Catholic iPhone App • Best Catholic iPad App • Best Catholic to Follow on Twitter • Best Catholic Facebook Page To learn more about each category,... Read more

…what an immensely complex system that nobody understands will be doing in a thousand years. I wonder if he thinks anybody who believes in biblical prophecy is a superstitious fool. Speaking of utter credulity before the prophets of science, here is the invaluable John C. Wright on Reverse Malthusianism and on the Prophets of Science and what they have wrought in the past with their cocksure pontifications. Read more

…buys Brooklyn Bridge. It looked like a great deal through his rose-colored glasses. Sorry, dude. But Roddenberry was a self-described secular humanist whose contempt for religion only grew as he got older and more pretentious about his status as a philosopher. In one script that never got produced, Jesus is a malevolent alien entity. In Who Watches the Watchers, we get this stirring peroration from Captain Picard which accurately reflects Roddenberry’s take on “religion” (all of it, except his own... Read more

…the Feds have now begun to show us what happens when Catholic educational institutions start sucking from the public teat: the Feds declare themselves to be theological authorities handing down edicts from Sinai on what is and is not “authentically” Catholic. Moral: Catholic schools have to wean themselves from state monies or they will be wholly owned subsidiaries of Caesar, who is a jealous god. Read more

“balance” in the media meant “Giving different views an airing in order to achieve the common good.” Now it means “Giving good and evil an airing in order to encourage people to call evil ‘good'”. Case in point: What if new tests for Down syndrome could one day mean no more affected babies are born? Is that cause to celebrate medical advances or reason to worry we are callously weeding out the less-than-perfect in our midst? The fact that the... Read more