The Catholic Thing

By Randall Smith I was reading the work of a modern, progressive moral theologian the other day. And he gave what has become a disturbingly common response to the classic moral conundrum: whether you can lie if you are hiding Jews in your house and Nazis knock on your door to ask whether you are hiding Jews in your house. "The Nazis don't have the right to the truth, so you can lie to them." Now,...

By Robert Royal I wouldn't have taken a more than average interest in Christopher Columbus if ill-informed and sometimes ill-intentioned people hadn't made it necessary. Fairfax County, Virginia, where I've lived for more than thirty-five years, abolished Columbus Day in 2020 as a paid holiday, but schools are closed today anyway – to celebrate "Indigenous Peoples' Day." The state legislature did...

By Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. Psalm 57:8 declares: "Awake, my soul, Awake O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!" This is a poetic verse, but does it make sense? Normally, we think of the dawn awakening us as the first light comes through our bedroom window. But we never think that we must get out of bed when it is still dark so that we will awake the dawn – that if we do not awake the daw...

By Alden Abbott The Catholic bishops of Arlington and Richmond, Michael Burbidge and Barry Knestout, urged Virginians to reject Ballot Question 1 next month, a proposed constitutional amendment that would expand legal access to abortion. The bishops warned that the measure would establish a so-called fundamental right to abortion "all the way up to birth and for every individual," including childr...

By Francis X. Maier 'One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.' It's a line typically attributed to Josef Stalin, an accomplished veteran of mass homicide, though it probably predates him by decades. The words are nonetheless true. The mind can only grasp so much suffering. The bigger the crime against humanity, the quicker it becomes a mere number – and the more unreal the personal...

By Michael Pakaluk Many Protestants who become Catholics pass through three stages in their Marian devotion. They begin by thinking the Rosary is not something bad, as they had supposed; they next come to think it is very good; and finally, with experience and as their faith grows, they may see that it is very powerful. As today falls between the Feast of the Holy Rosary and the memorial of St. Jo...

By Kristen Ziccarelli "On October 7, AD 1571, the fleet of the Holy League under the command of one Don Juan de Austria defeated the Turkish fleet in the Gulf of Lepanto. That was how they would put it; that was how they would teach it to their children. And it was wrong. For what really happened was that God made use of a number of his servants to stop the progress of the Crescent in the holy nam...

By Joanna Bogle The Catholic cemetery at Mortlake in South West London has an agreeably rural feel, and is worth a visit: it's about 20 minutes from Waterloo on the line going down to Richmond, and a short walk from the station. It is chiefly famous for the large stone, tent-shaped tomb of the 19th-century explorer Sir Richard Burton. This brings numbers of tourists and historians each year. Other...

By Robert Royal The large crowds that turned out for Pope Leo everywhere in France surprised everyone – not least, sad to say, the French bishops. Let's hope that his visit has even greater effects. But just days later, France is gripped by widespread rioting and arson, being misreported as "student unrest," but actually a far-left operation with Islamist collaborators. In the message the pope rea...

By Brad Miner Late last year, my wife began carefully, meticulously planning a week-long trip to Paris for the whole family. She did so, as she noted to the other eight of us, because she meant to celebrate in style her upcoming "significant" birthday. She wisely decided on late September: the weather would be cooler and the crowds smaller. So, flights and hotel reservations were made, and restaur...

By Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas I am writing within the octave of the beatification of Fulton J. Sheen, and find myself still basking in the glow of that blessed and long-awaited event, which had many personal associations for me. As a schoolboy, I was quizzed every Wednesday morning by Sister, who routinely would ask the class, "What did 'The Bishop' say last night?" (In those days "The Bishop" di...

By Casey Chalk The man was at the top of his game. His professional career was at full throttle, moving from one success to another. Yet he was also admired for his love and sacrifices for his family. Though many disagreed with his religious convictions, no one questioned his virtue or sincerity. Everything he touched seemed to turn to gold. Then, without warning, a debilitating illness struck. Hi...

By Stephen P. White In his new book, A Catholic Guide to Being Human, Dr. John Grabowski offers a reminder that the term "person" is more freighted with theological implications than we often consider. Identifying and unpacking those implications is the first step toward answering what is, perhaps, the greatest question of our age: What does it mean to be human? The Christian West once had a confi...

By H.W. Crocker III Rod Dreher is hard at work on a book about "Weimar America." The disquieting trends that trouble Dreher – rising anti-Semitism and social alienation, the decline of Christianity, and the likelihood of civilizational war – are also the subject, in a different context, of Kruger's Korps, my most recent book, which I'd like to tell you about because there's more to it than its cov...

By Randall Smith In Homer's Odyssey, when Odysseus returns to Ithaca, disguised as a poor wanderer, he is given food and shelter by the swineherd, Eumaeus. The ancient Greek code for providing hospitality to strangers, xenia, was considered a sacred obligation overseen by Zeus. Eumaeus's obligation would be to take the stranger to the house of his lord to be cared for. But he knows that the suitor...

By Fr. Benedict Kiely Jesus is asked by Jairus, an official of the Jerusalem Synagogue, to come to his house and heal his daughter who is gravely ill. As recounted in St. Mark's Gospel, Jesus hurries to his house, but is told on the way that she has died. Arriving, the Lord, who sees what others cannot see, and knows that God's glory will be revealed, tells them that the girl is not dead, only sle...

By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Are you a hypocrite? Well, it might feel like that at times. At least, it should. Anyone striving for something great should be aware of his failures and how short he falls of the ideal. Even more so when the ideal is Christ Himself. You go to Mass, pray the Rosary, and say grace before meals. But then you snap at your children, covet your neighbor's goods (and wife), eat too...

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza The saints are always greater, because the Gospel is always greater. Greater than our usual categories, our customary ways of thinking. Archbishop Fulton Sheen was just that, as his beatification in St. Louis on Thursday illustrated. The homily of papal legate Cardinal Luis Tagle emphasized Blessed Fulton as a man animated by a special love for the poor, and with a passi...

By Brad Miner We've all done things we regret. One of the many salvific glories of Catholicism is the Sacrament of Penance, although, as we all know, the priest's absolution does not make the penitent a tabula rasa – a clean slate. For one thing, although our guilt before God is forgiven (not erased), the temporal consequences of sin will likely continue. Let's say I commit murder and then, after...

By Michael Pakaluk and Christopher Reilly St. John of Antioch, called Chrysostom or "golden-mouthed" (d. 407), "is generally considered. . .the greatest preacher ever heard in a Christian pulpit," according to the Catholic Encyclopedia. Or are homilies even more golden if they are concise? Nearly all the surviving works of the 5th-century Bishop of Ravenna, Peter, are homilies noteworthy for their...

By Francis X. Maier The plane from Dakar into Guinea-Bissau was ninety minutes late and, as luck would have it, half a dozen other Americans had flopped themselves around the waiting room. They were kids in their late teens, part of a high-end adventure travel group, the sort that specializes in appealing to enlightened cultural elites. They were on their way to a three-week "cultural plunge" into...

By Robert Royal Deo volente, and if air traffic disruptions spare me, I'll be home this morning following a late pilgrimage in America after an overcommitted summer. I planned to follow El Camino Real ("The Royal Road") in California starting from San Diego and heading up north, stopping at several missions mostly founded by Spanish Franciscans, all the way to San Francisco and the final two locat...

By Robert J. Kurland In a few weeks (as I write this) the Jewish Holy Days will be here – Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement. [Editor's note: today, September 21] And again I wonder, am I a Jewish Catholic or a Catholic Jew? There is a difference. The noun, the second word, conveys the fundamental identity; the adjective is a modifier. An Irish Catholic is not...

By David G Bonagura, Jr. At first glance, it does not seem hard to be Catholic. Go to Mass on Sunday. Pray. Keep the commandments. Love others. Sounds easy enough. People like easy – it's the key adjective in every advertisement these days: easy meals, easy programs, easy payments, easy installation. The implication is clear: what is hard is undesirable, unpleasant, unnecessary. What sane person w...

By Elizabeth A. Mitchell Sacrifice is a paradox. A compelling paradox. In his new book, Sacrifice: Religion and the Revitalization of Christian Life, Clemens Cavallin dives headfirst into the historical, theological, and salvific nature of sacrifice throughout the human and divine story, calling his readers to a renewed embrace of the true nature of God's redemptive plan. This compelling book is a...