Random stuff I find interesting and you may not.
A leading cardinal and former secretary of the Roman Curia has spoken to the Catholic Herald about the state of the Church, the role of the papacy, and how Catholics should approach authority. Cardinal Gerhard Ludwig Müller, prefect emeritus of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, described the veneration of the private and … Read more
Many news organizations carried the story of the release of Bar Kuperstein two years after he had been kidnapped by Hamas on October 7. Kuperstein was a young security guard at the Nova Festival, the music festival targeted by Hamas for its fat genocidal possibilities, with sides of rape, torture, and kidnapping. After taking some … Read more
The digital right’s embrace of Jew hatred can no longer be ignored. In a way, I’m glad Candace Owens held up a copy of the notoriously anti-Semitic screed, The Talmudic Jew, during her latest digital rant. For it confirms what she is. More importantly, it lays down a gauntlet to the right. To the left … Read more
Each December, as holiday decorations go up and familiar music fills the air, another relatively new holiday ritual returns with equal predictability — social media fills with declarations that “Jesus was a Palestinian,” often joined by the equally fictional assertion that he was a “Palestinian refugee.” These claims appear every Christmas season as reliably as … Read more
Last month, Communist China launched its largest ever crackdown on Christians. The raids across Beijing, Shanghai and eight other cities mark the beginning of an escalation as the paranoid Xi regime sets out to suppress the growing number of Chinese Christians. While the Communist regime claims that the official number of Christians in China is … Read more
Senator Ted Cruz is trying to wake people up to what he sees as a growing crisis on the right. He has taken to saying that if he were to post “Good morning” on the social media platform X, within minutes he would be deluged by hundreds of blatantly antisemitic replies. It’s not much of … Read more
It wasn’t 1985 anymore, and he wasn’t in Bedford Falls. It was 2016: Barack Obama sat in the White House as the most pro-abortion president in history, and same-sex marriage had become legal in every state. In just three years as pontiff, Pope Francis had unsettled the hearts of millions of faithful Catholics with a … Read more
The much-discussed Tucker Carlson interview of the Holocaust-denying, Hitler-admiring, white-nationalist, anti-liberal MAGA influencer Nick Fuentes has brought some of the online cesspool into mainstream discussion, exposing a potential fault line in the project to build the political right’s post-Trump future. For the right, the only way out of the awful ugliness in some of its … Read more
Undoubtedly, it often happens that you try to correct certain depraved and dishonest people who are under your care, but every effort and concern is in vain. They are incorrigible, so they have to be put up with. Such incorrigibles are already in the Church. How then will you separate yourself from them so that … Read more
When I studied at university in Durham, there was a visiting Dominican friar finishing his PhD. The more traditionally inclined among the Catholics who studied in that ancient cathedral city had a habit of turning to him for counsel on manifold matters. One such piece of mentorship this affable, stolid, clear-thinking and orthodox priest gave … Read more
A primary lesson of the Arian crisis is the ephemeral nature of political regimes. Arianism seemed to be triumphant in all provinces of the church. The orthodox leadership was beaten down, almost all the bishops were submissive, and the Arian power brokers seemed to be in complete control. Athanasius, stalked beneath the desert stars, must … Read more
Hamas desperately wants the food operation to fail. But Israel at last has said no to this corrupt story. “Hamas” is a word that appears many times in Hebrew Scripture. Typical is its appearance in the story of Noah in Genesis. There, the narrative tells us: The world became corrupt before God; the world was. … Read more
The incense is rising again. Not just in Gothic cathedrals or Latin Mass enclaves—but in the hearts of young Americans who, against every cultural current, are swimming upstream toward Catholicism. It’s a phenomenon that baffles secular elites and liberal Protestants alike. How, in this age of deconstruction and digital nihilism, could the Church of hierarchy, … Read more
Catholicism needs a smaller papacy to clear room for worship and wonder . . . But there is another urgent, and perhaps unwelcome, task for the new pontiff. The greatest service he can give the church, and to restore true Catholic faith, is to take it upon himself to begin dismantling some of the accretions … Read more
Over the length of the Francis pontificate, those with even a slight whiff of concern were labeled “anti-Francis,” or having “attacked” Francis, or had even become heretics. The Francists are playing defense now, fighting a rear-guard action against those who have questioned certain actions, thoughts, and even “teachings” of Pope Francis. There is an odor … Read more
Thank God for the Jews! God the son, God almighty, the Christ – the Messiah, Jesus was a Jew, is now a Jew, and will be ‘til forever. Mary, the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Mother of God, Theotokos-the God-bearer, was a Jew, is now a Jew and will be ‘til forever. Joseph, spouse of Mary, … Read more
Handel – Messiah – by London Philharmonic (Complete Concerto/Full) Handel’s Messiah | Easter He is risen! He is risen, indeed!
Bishop Joseph Strickland invited priests this month to join a “prayerful community” of fraternity, while criticizing Pope Francis for apparently failing “to reject the siren call of sodomy.” The invitation came in a letter distributed by the former Bishop of Tyler, Texas — given to priests who attended a March 19 gathering of Catholics at … Read more
Men are not inspired by diversity, equity, and inclusion. Whatever else they may be, these are not masculine qualities. Young men are simply not signing up to become priests — certainly not in the numbers that they used to. According to the Vatican’s Annuarium Statisticum Ecclesiae, the past 12 years have seen a continuing decline … Read more
Black Americans: It’s Time to Come Home to the Catholic Church That Black Catholic Chick, Roxie Beckles Related PostsHow I Joined the Resistance The Catholic Origins of Thanksgiving Blessed Virgin Mary “God doesn’t call the equipped, He equips the called.” Not 2 worry!
Why did Jesus tell people to make offerings in the Temple? Why did Paul call himself a Pharisee? The Bible’s answer might surprise you. Many assume that Jesus came to abolish Jewish religious practices, but the Gospels tell a different story. The New Testament is filled with references to Jesus and his family and disciples … Read more
From Christianity’s beginnings, the Church has been attacked by those introducing false teachings, or heresies. The Bible warned us this would happen. Paul told his young protégé, Timothy, “For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own likings, … Read more
“You say, the times are troublesome, the times are burdensome, the times are miserable. Live rightly and you will change the times. The times have never hurt anyone. Those who are hurt are human beings; those by whom they are hurt are also human beings. So, change human beings and the times will be changed.” … Read more
Next Monday, October 7th, marks the first anniversary of the terrorist attack on Israel by the terror group Hamas. It was this attack that started the Israel-Gaza War. Is there any issue in our public life more fraught than the Israel-Gaza War? I mean, for Catholics. We all know where faithful Catholics stand on, say, … Read more
Contrary to popular perception, the medieval papacy challenged the Jew-hatred of its day, in a way Catholics can derive inspiration from today. The Jew-hatred on display at some campus protests corresponds little with attitudes toward Jews in America. But today’s ill-informed protesters on the quad are tomorrow’s managerial elite. Many young Americans of privilege have … Read more