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Insights provides critical perspective on the issues that affect your life as a Catholic today. Delivered twice weekly.
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Digging into dignity
The Vatican's new document on human dignity remains the news of the week. Many have been criticizing the document's claim that human beings have "infinite dignity", but Jeff Mirus and Phil Lawler both find reason to defend that phrase - though they express some concerns over its...
Easter defense of human dignity
The big Catholic news this week was the public release of Dignitas Infinita, the new Declaration on Human Dignity from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith. The document is well worth reading, and we provide the resources you need to benefit from it: News summary: Vatican document...
Christ is risen!
As Catholic Culture gets back into gear in the Easter season, I have to make sure you didn’t miss a very important news story we broke on Easter Monday: Obelisk missing from St. Peter’s Square! More seriously, Jenn Miller offers a guide to the upcoming Liturgical Highlights: Octave...
Lenten and Easter wonder
As we prepare for Easter, there is no sense sugar-coating our concerns about the state of the Church. Indeed, all the more reason to proclaim again our faith in the Resurrection as the crown of suffering and death. To begin this week’s analysis, Phil Lawler—amid repeated assurances...
Turning back to God
It's always nice to have good news for a change. Phil Lawler comments on a seeming reversal of the immoral direction of Irish politics: In Ireland, a shift in the global political trend? Speaking of turning back, Jeff Mirus reflects on how the Psalms can prompt us to...
On the Pope's autobiography
Apart from being the Solemnity of St. Joseph, today will go down in history as the astonishing day on which a pope published his own autobiography. Unsurprisingly, both Phil Lawler and I have strong opinions on the subject: Phil: Pope Francis, ‘doctor of the law’ Jeff: A...
The universality of Christ
The director of the new Cabrini film, Alejandro Monteverde, downplayed the saint's Catholic faith in order, he says, to tell a more universal story. The suppressed premise: Christ is not universal. Because his comments are discouraging Catholic artists who have high aspirations...
Wise as serpents...
Fr. Jerry Pokorsky leads off today with Nicodemus Survival Tactics: Tips on following Christ in a hostile environment. For my part, I found myself stumbling over one of the psalms recently, in which David identified himself with the righteousness of God—a very tricky business indeed:...
The average man is called to holiness
A short email for you today. Few Catholics today have heard of the Shepherd of Hermas, but in the early Church this apocalyptic text was quite well-known and some Church Fathers even considered it to be a part of Scripture. On Catholic Culture Audiobooks, we'll be releasing this...
Pagan hostility
Thomas Mirus’ review of the new movie about St. Frances Xavier Cabrini (1850-1917) is not favorable. In his already widely-circulated analysis, Cabrini secularizes a saint, Thomas explains what went so terribly wrong. For several more reasons which will become clear below, it is a good...
Ill news is an ill guest...
Two weeks into Lent, are you finding yourself in a slump? Give yourself a jolt to the conscience by listening to St. John Henry Newman's sermon, "Knowledge of God's Will without Obedience", which we've just uploaded to our YouTube channel. We've had a fair bit of...
A helpful statement on brain death
I open today’s conversation with a serious question: What happened to the Christianity of the apostles? If we see a dramatic contrast in our Catholicism today, we have a problem. Yesterday, Fr. Jerry Pokorsky offered interesting reflections on our own transformation in Christ: The...
Catholic culture is local
This week I had the opportunity to learn about the medieval mystery plays while producing a podcast episode on the subject. Their inherent artistic interest aside, one striking fact is that these religious dramas our forebears staged to celebrate Corpus Christi were decidedly local...
Keeping an exemplary Lent
Early in this first full week in Lent, I join Fr. Jerry Pokorsky in offering ideas and resources to help you make the most of this transformative season: Fr. Pokorsky gets down to the basics of Lenten spiritual growth: Back-to-Basics Lenten Resolutions I focus on the urgency of our need to...
Chastity and integrity
We pray your Lent is getting off to a good start! We all know the Ash Wednesday phenomenon: non-practicing Catholics flock back to the churches every year to get their ashes. People often dismiss this as superficial, but Phil Lawler suggests that perhaps there is an attraction there that should...
Slip-sliding into Lent?
It is easy to get into a Lenten rut before Lent even begins, if we do not make some concrete plans. If you ask who would ever simply backslide into Lent, I would sometimes have to raise my own hand! But there is still time for some preparatory questions: What will I add to my prayer life? What...
Culture war or spiritual combat?
This will be a quick update, since my time to write the newsletter today is limited. Phil Lawler critiques a well-worn but misleading phrase in "No, this isn't a culture war". Jeff Mirus offers a reflection on one of the Bible's most confounding books, which always...
Live the Truth!
Amid the constant distortions of reality at which our modern technocratic world excels, we should frequently remind ourselves and anyone who will listen of the reality of God’s love. Fr. Jerry Pokorsky suggests two ways to do that in his latest essay on Compassion and Gratitude—a...
The Light Feast
Today is the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, or Candlemas. As this is both a Marian and a Christocentric feast, we’ve uploaded to YouTube our audiobook of a classic sermon by St. John Henry Newman in which he explains the Providential logic behind the gradual development of Marian...
Prizing the good of the Church
I'm convinced that we Catholics often fail to take the Church seriously, and yet it ought to be to us as the Temple and Jerusalem were supoosed to be to the Jews in the Old Testament—the bearer of God's promises and God's protection, and the locus of His special...
Sacramental dissimulation
Today in our commentary, Dr. Jeff Mirus brings our attention to a quote from St. John Henry Newman about the horror we ought to have for even a single venial sin. And Phil Lawler is, as ever, abreast of financial chicanery in the Vatican: A Vatican court ruling keeps the lid on financial...
Assessing Francis...and cinema
If you don’t follow our podcasts, you may not be aware of how closely Thomas Mirus and James Majewski follow the art form of movie-making and its impact on faith and culture (especially in Criteria: The Catholic Film Podcast). In addition, each year Thomas offers movie recommendations in...
Pray for Christian unity
There are only two sacraments that Christ said we must receive to be saved: Baptism and the Eucharist. Thus we might consider these the two primary sacraments to which all others are subordinated. But subjectively speaking, we all have our “favorite” sacraments and it is worth...
Collective wisdom?
Each January Thomas Mirus puts together a survey of the books (and a few other types of media) most enjoyed by our writers and podcasters in the previous year. Here is the latest: The best books Catholic Culture staff read in 2023. May you find something interesting, entertaining or eminently...
An incredible Catholic range
Even I was impressed with the remarkable range of outstanding Catholic material our writers and podcasters have posted during the second half of this week. I feel blessed to be a part of it. In his typical wide-ranging news commentary, Phil Lawler has posted two items: The...
"Behold I make all things new!"
I don’t think it is time quite yet to abandon our New Year’s resolutions, but it may be time to purify them and offer them to Our Lord and Savior. In a rare Saturday post, Phil Lawler advises us all to Jump off the media’s fear-and-panic bandwagon. (Indeed, a little confidence...
Clarify Me, Please, God of the Galaxies
The less-than-enthusiastic response of many bishops worldwide to Fiducia supplicans has led the Vatican to "clarify" (very slightly walk back) Fiducia supplicans - despite the document itself having said no clarifications would be forthcoming. Phil Lawler...
Catching up after Christmas
Happy to be back with you following Christmas week, let me begin by calling your attention to Phil Lawler’s coverage of: Unfinished business: the top stories of 2023. I am happy also to report how generous Fr. Jerry Pokorsky has been with his own commentary during these...
Christmas joy amid misery
Is it just me, or does the Vatican frequently drop these chaos-making documents right before Christmas or Easter? Ah well - if we are able to see the temptation to be distracted from the mysteries of our religion, then we are able to choose not to be distracted. Nonetheless, these...
Blessings and same-sex "couples"
The big news so far this week, of course, is the promulgation of a new document from the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith: Vatican allows blessings for same-sex couples outside liturgy. As is so often the case during this pontificate, the text raises more problems than it solves. Our...
