On the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, it’s a good time for a little post on Marian devotion, wouldn’t you agree? Because if it’s Advent, ’tis the season for carping about Catholics and their overdone attachment to the Mother of Christ. So I’ve got a two-for-one post to help explain this predilection of ours, via the old media (from a book you can’t find) and via the new media from a You Tube video, which ironically is based on... Read more
My fields are vast, and yet small. My plot is so tiny, in fact, that you would think that it would be quite mangeable. But there, you would be wrong. The climate and conditions my plot is set down in is ever changing. And if I take my eye off of it, or let my mind wander, it gets overrun with weeds. Or worse yet? It becomes dry, parched, and rock hard. (more…) Read more
here’s a tweet-sized shot of vitamin B-XVI, circa 2010. Maybe it’s a taste of tweetable tidbits to come? Don’t forget to check in on @pontifex tomorrow. Read more
This is part VII of my conversion story, tagged as 2BFrank in the Tag Cloud. I run it every year on this day to commemorate the death of Thomas Merton, who was also known as Father Louis. Yes, I am well aware that he is not a canonized saint, but the salient point about Fr. Louis’ life is not whether he was a good Catholic, or a bad Catholic. The main thing isn’t even that his writings helped bring me... Read more
How does one believe in the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and then deny personhood when conception occurs nowadays? That’s the thought that popped into my head when I came across the following passage in a dusty volume printed in 1913. (more…) Read more
—Solemnity of the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary I’m always the last one to know. And that is pretty much because I keep my head down, my blinders on, and just keep plowing. You know, as if everything I needed to know about anything can be conceived of, and imagined, inside my little head, or from my limited experiences. But then I woke up after a very long slumber. (more…) Read more
Given that Alfred Hitchcocks’ life has been in the news of late, what with the film Hitchcock hitting the theaters, I was happy to learn that he returned to the Catholic faith of his youth (if he strayed), and died in the resting arms of the Church. This touching story, told by Fr. Mark Henninger, SJ, appeared in the Wall Street Journal yesterday. It’s an eye-opening eyewitness account of Alfred Hitchcock, fellow Catholic. (more…) Read more
Feast of St. Ambrose I am reminded of the things the digital age will completely miss when looking back at their history: revisions to speeches such as this one by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. From the National Archives, FDR’s draft of the speech to Congress following Pearl Harbor. (more…) Read more
Remember the bratpack cowboy flick Young Guns? Emilio Estevez played the part of Billy “the Kid.” That’s how I’ve always pictured Marc Barnes, since he was knee-high to a grasshopper. And that’s what I call him too. “The Kid” is a straight shooter, and one hell of a marksman to boot. Check out what happens when the Guttmacher Institute, you know, the respectable scientific research arm of Planned Parenthood, crossed his path. (more…) Read more
Back in May, the Archdiocese of New York filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) because of the HHS Mandate requiring contraceptive, abortifacient, and sterilization coverage for employees. The plaintiffs in the case are as follows: (more…) Read more
Why I Am Catholic
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