Part of being a Catholic is to live in the past in the present. What I am getting at is the idea that the universality of the Catholic faith means that it transcends not only particular cultural circumstances and particular locales, but it also transcends time. Think about it. At Mass the priest comes out robed like a Roman senator. Did you know that’s where the vestments first originated? The liturgy transcends time because even the Novus Ordo (sometimes derided... Read more
My article for Aleteia this week asks whether conservative Benedict XVI appointed bishops are out to get Pope Francis. In a highly biased report, radical progressive Michael Sean Winters twisted the Archbishop’s comments into criticism of Pope Francis. Archbishop Chaput replied, “There are people who…deliberately want to twist the truth, and divide the Church, and use my words as saying I was critical of either the pope or the synod, and that absolutely wasn’t true.” Cardinal Burke has joined Archbishop... Read more
One of the strengths and weaknesses of the internet age is that people write to strangers with personal problems which are often complex, but there is no context or background. So I’ll get an email out of the blue from someone I don’t know asking “What is the meaning of life? Why are we here? Why does God judge us and sent us to hell when we never even asked to be born in the first place?” The person doesn’t... Read more
What is it in me that likes the difficult sayings of Jesus more than the easy sayings? Everybody loves Jesus who says, “Let the little children come to me” and “Neither do I condemn you” But have you read the gospels lately? Jesus’ teaching is much more forceful and strident than we like to remember. He’s calling his enemies the “Sons of Satan”, “whitewashed tombs full of dead and decaying bodies” and snakes. He’s saying that the way to heaven... Read more
A friend of mine once exclaimed, “Oh, the vulnerability of beauty in a world of useful things!” What he was observing is the fact that beauty cuts across utilitarian and economic ideals. Of course a thing that is efficient and useful might also be beautiful, but something which seeks to be beautiful first of all will seem vulnerable in the face of those twin monsters efficiency and economy. This clash is nowhere more apparent in the brutality of church architecture in... Read more
Mother Cabrini was frail and tiny of body but strong of soul. Read about her here. Cabrini was born July 15, 1850, in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano, in the LombardProvince of Lodi, then part of the Austrian Empire, the youngest of the eleven children of Agostino Cabrini and Stella Oldini, who were wealthy cherry tree farmers. Sadly, only four of the eleven survived beyond adolescence.[2] Small and weak as a child, born two months premature, she remained in delicate health throughout her life. When she went to visit... Read more
It’s a typical Christian bromide: “Hate the sin. Love the sinner.” The problem is–how do I do that? The sinner sins. How do you separate the sin from the sinner, and to be honest, at the final judgement it is the sinner who is condemned for his sin. It’s not like Jesus says, “There, there, you can come into heaven, but I’m going to send your sin to hell.” No. At the last day the sinner is condemned with the... Read more
Here is an article/interview on marriage for Georgetown’s Berkley Center for Religion, Peace and World Affairs: I have a very subversive and radical vision for Christian marriage. It is just as radical as it was when it first hit the scene in the Roman Empire in the first and second centuries. It is this: that one man and one woman will commit themselves to a lifelong relationship of mutual, total self sacrificial love. That love will be so self sacrificial that... Read more
Here is a debate between Mary and Jerry about women priests. Mary and Jerry are not real people. MARY: I don’t see why the church forbids women from being priests. Women have entered every other profession. We have women doctors, lawyers, politicians, soldiers and entrepreneurs. Why not a woman priest? JERRY: Being a priest is different than those other jobs. MARY: I don’t see it. JERRY: Those jobs are something a person chooses. The priesthood is the other way around. Instead of choosing the... Read more
In re-reading C.S.Lewis’ wonderful sermon The Weight of Glory he begins with comments on the nature of desire. Christianity is known by those outside for it prohibitions. It seems to be a religion of “Thou shalt not.” Lewis reminds us that desire is good because it is a desire for the good. Even when the desire is distorted into something horrible and fearsome, still beneath it all is a desire for a good. The prohibitions for which Christians are famous are not... Read more
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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