If I am late coming to a review of Judith Valente’s new book — which is currently being featured in the Patheos Book Club, it is only because the pope keeps all of us very busy these days, and Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home and a Living Faith is too good for a slap-dash mention. After reading, it needed time for absorption, and even some revisits, to do it justice. People are fast to make comparisons... Read more
The Holy Father continues to speak with a sharp sense of urgency: “Yes, you have to come to know Jesus in the Catechism – but it is not enough to know Him with the mind: it is a step. However, it is necessary to get to know Jesus in dialogue with Him, talking with Him in prayer, kneeling. If you do not pray, if you do not talk with Jesus, you do not know Him. You know things about Jesus,... Read more
Earlier today I read this piece by Tom Blumer and my eyes nearly popped out of their sockets: The third tragic outcome of Obamacare is what it will do to marriages and families. In January 2010, two months before Obamacare’s passage, the estimable Robert Rector at the Heritage Foundation gave the impact a name: the “wedding tax.” To illustrate, let’s start with the 60-year-old married couple with no children whose situation I illustrated at the end of Part 1: If... Read more
The Little Sisters of the Poor are heroic social servants: they serve the indigent poor and go begging on their behalf. They are tremendous women offering companionship, love and hospitality to people who often have no one else in their lives willing to see and affirm their dignity and worth, and they don’t ask “are you a Catholic” before they make that offer: it is for all. Likewise, in their many facilities across the nation, the Little Sisters employ nurses,... Read more
This morning, I read this and felt a huge interior push to take up a fast and prayer for these brothers and sisters of ours: The silence of our friends – the extinction of Christianity in the Middle East The last month and a half has seen perhaps the worst anti-Christian violence in Egypt in seven centuries, with dozens of churches torched. Yet the western media has mainly focussed on army assaults on the Muslim Brotherhood, and no major political... Read more
UPDATE: Audio here Along with Kathryn Jean Lopez and Word on Fire’s Father Steve Grunow, I’ll be chatting all things Francis and the Spadaro interview with Sheila Liaugminas of Relevant Radio’s “A Closer Look”, at 6PM Eastern. So, listen if if you can. I think she’ll be taking questions at some point. Btw, if you need to download it, the Relevant Radio App is free and very good. Read more
Antonio Spadaro, SJ is one of the nicest, most humbly centered and joyful men I have ever met, and his remarkable interview with Pope Francis is, almost a week after its publishing, still dominating conversations among Catholics and even non-Catholics. Bravo, Antonio! The talks that are happening are remarkable, even among people who we may presume have discussed an issue many times, and perhaps have reached an impasse, or simply not known where else to go with it. Check out... Read more
Earlier today I linked to two posts, by Cravings author, Mary DeTurris Poust, which gave vent to frustrations felt by far too many Catholics, these days — including me — regarding the quality of our liturgies. Mary is craving something better, healthier. This evening, Elizabeth Husted Duffy, who shares one priest with three parishes, looks at what it means to be a healthy parish: Our new priest’s schedule is brutal. On Saturdays, he says the vigil Mass at one church... Read more
The weekend was busy and I was offline for most of it, so I came late to Mary DeTurris Poust’s most excellent rant on the state of homilies and parish liturgies in general but when I read it, I cheered. I completely understood where she was coming from, because so often I’ve gone to mass half-dragging my feet, dreading the sort of (can I say this?) half-assed manner in which so many parishes serve it. And I don’t mean “serve... Read more
Via Matthew Schmitz’ twitter feed, where he notes a sense of “disorientation.” I can just hear the mainstream secular press. WAIT! WHAT? I thought we had a read on this guy! He was gonna shut up about abortion, already! Next day he’s telling doctors not to perform them, and sayin’ each aborted kid has the face of Christ? WHAT? That’s like the WORST THING HE COULD SAY when people are actually listening! This feels like Charlie Brown and Lucy and... Read more
The Anchoress
Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In