Benedict’s Book: An Appraisal

Last updated on: December 20, 2012 at 1:13 pm By Nathan O'Halloran, SJ

Now that the secular media has completed its rants about how Joseph Ratzinger (Benedict XVI) destroyed Christmas, the time has come to engage more seriously the accomplishment of Ratzinger in his new book The Infancy Narratives. What is the overall merit of his project? Let me begin by saying that the spiritual reflections Ratzinger offers throughout the book are well worth anyone’s read. I was deeply moved, for instance, by his reflections on the Annunciation, and by his insightful commentary... Read more

Thomas Merton on Advent (and Newtown)

Last updated on: December 19, 2012 at 10:10 pm By Mark Gordon

From Thomas Merton’s essay, “Advent: Hope or Delusion?” “The certainty of Christian hope lies beyond passion and beyond knowledge. Therefore we must sometimes expect our hope to come in conflict with darkness, desperation and ignorance. Therefore, too, we must remember that Christian optimism is not a perpetual sense of euphoria, an indefectable comfort in whose presence neither anguish nor tragedy can possibly exist. We must not strive to maintain a climate of optimism by the mere suppression of tragic realities.... Read more

Reaping What We Sow

Last updated on: April 26, 2017 at 11:15 am By Matt Talbot

So, in Newtown, Connecticut, 20 children are dead. 20 Children. Most of them six-year-olds. Gunned down by a madman with an assault rifle and two handguns. I spent most of last Friday feeling like crying. It is hard to be objective about such a crime, such a violation of the innocence of children. My first reaction was that moral depravity on this scale is impossible to make sense of, because it is truly senseless. But, what if it is true... Read more

Another religious liberty issue?

Last updated on: December 17, 2012 at 11:16 am By Morning's Minion

I had not thought about this much until I read this blog post on the craziest gun laws in the United States. Consider this: “Property rights end where gun rights begin: According to the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, 17 states, including Oklahoma and Florida, bar employers from preventing their employees from bringing guns to work and keeping them locked in their vehicles, even if those vehicles are on the property of the employer. Indiana and North Dakota allow employees... Read more

Reflections on the Nativity

Last updated on: December 16, 2012 at 1:01 pm By David Cruz-Uribe

December 16, 2012, Gaudete Sunday A sermon delivered to St. Joseph Fraternity, Hartford, as part of our annual Christmas Creche devotion My brothers and sisters in Christ: may the Lord give you Peace! Today we follow the tradition established by our Father Francis of recreating the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem, celebrating this fact in word and song. The first such celebration was in Greccio in 1223, and we have just heard the description of it by Thomas of Celano.... Read more

Powers and Principalities: The Gun as Idol

Last updated on: May 3, 2017 at 7:01 pm By Brett Salkeld

I am increasingly convinced that idolatry is a category that Christianity needs to recover. As long as it remains ignored, a central tenet of Christianity, that an essential aspect of Jesus’s work was to unmask the powers and principalities that order the logic of this world, remains opaque to us. And as long as this remains opaque, we will continue to worship those powers and principalities. The suggestion that this is hyperbole and mythology has no purchase with me. The... Read more

Mary: Our Voice, God’s Voice

Last updated on: April 26, 2017 at 12:05 pm By Nathan O'Halloran, SJ

Having completed two of my favorite Marian days of the year, the feasts of the Immaculate Conception and of Our Lady of Guadalupe, I can take a moment now to pause and reflect on what they mean together. In the Immaculate Conception, Mary speaks for humanity. That, I believe, is the deepest meaning of the Immaculate Conception. Not freedom from some kind “stain” of original sin, but the completely free capacity to speak a full and resounding “Yes” on behalf... Read more

Robert Sirico is pro-choice

Last updated on: April 26, 2017 at 11:23 am By Morning's Minion

Have a look at Robert Sirico’s latest essay applauding Michigan’s right-to-work legislation. (By the way, Michael Sean Winters is a must-read on this today). It is not really a surprise that Sirico is against unions. After all, he is a consistent libertarian who believes in the supremacy of individual autonomy, in spite of clear Church positions against this – take Pope Paul VI, for example, who explicitly condemns the “erroneous affirmation of the autonomy of the individual in his activity, his motivation... Read more

Christian Practices in a Consumer Culture

Last updated on: May 3, 2017 at 7:01 pm By Brett Salkeld

Two young fish, so the story goes, are swimming casually along, talking about whatever it is that young fish talk about. Presently, they look up and notice an elderly fish approaching. He has a mysterious twinkle in his eye as he passes them, going the opposite direction, and playfully shouts, “Hey boys! How’s the water?” Once the old fish is out of earshot, the first young fish turns to the second and asks, “What the heck’s water?” It has been... Read more

Hell and Evangelization

Last updated on: April 26, 2017 at 11:45 am By Joshua B

Recently Ralph Martin has published what appears to be an important book entitled, Will Many be Saved? The majority of Martin’s book is spent arguing that we need to stop assuming that most people will be saved, and indeed Augustine and Aquinas would probably agree with him. The last chapter of the book argues that the Church needs restore a little hellfire and brimstone, as it were, into its preaching in order to successfully evangelize. He explains that thanks in... Read more