Commentary
The ‘obscure provision’ of Canon 915
The implication here is that everyday Catholics are familiar with the provisions of canon law. So that presumably they could rattle off the first 914 canons in the code without any difficulty, but when asked to continue, would bog down. “Canon 915? Oh, gosh; that’s obscure.”
St. Boethius: Church Father and Medieval Scholar
St. Severinus Boethius was a man with one foot in the ancient world and one foot in the middle ages. He is another one of our lesser-known fathers who were anything but forgotten among the medieval scholastics. In this episode, Dr. Papandrea introduces another enigmatic but highly influential Church father.
My panel on Catholic cinema at Notre Dame’s Fall Conference
A talk I gave at Notre Dame’s 2024 Fall Conference/the Catholic Imagination Conference this year has been uploaded to YouTube by the de Nicola Center for Ethics and Culture. My talk was part of a larger panel together with Nathan Douglas and Andrew Petiprin, titled 30 Years of the Vatican...
Is Pope Francis fighting youthful battles all over again?
Which recent Pope has done most to clarify the Church’s grasp of the natural moral law (answer: the personalist philosopher St. John Paul II) and which has done most to confuse that grasp (answer: Francis). We might also ask which recent pope has done most to spark a genuine renewal of Catholic theology (answer: the ressourcement theologian Benedict XVI) and which has done most to encourage theologians in re-shaping Divine Revelation to justify contemporary sexual morals (answer: Francis).
Prepare the Way of the Lord with a Good Confession
Adam blamed Eve, and Eve blamed the serpent, but the blame-game gambit didn’t work. They were guilty as charged.
Setting the record straight on Governor Grandma
In this week of big national and international happenings, I want to talk about a small thing, a local thing. I want to talk about it because I think it has a lot to do with our present situation on the national level. And because it is a cautionary tale for Catholics like, well, me, who are excited about the new possibilities in the political arena.
Time! How long should the homily be? How long for Mass?
In this “efficiency mode”, my own preference is to hear something from the priest after the Gospel, but it upsets my precious schedule if the homily is longer than a few minutes. And if it goes to fifteen or twenty minutes….well, let’s just say that the last time my watch broke, I decided not to replace it, mostly for spiritual reasons.
Wishing you a restless Advent
If the parties are all held before Christmas— earlier and earlier, as hosts try to avoid the rush— then both the decorations and the party-goers are wilting by the time Christmas Day arrives. So the premature celebrations that nearly erase Advent also sap the joyous energy from the Christmas season.
186—Is there ever enough of Mary? w/ Fr. Charles Anthony Mary, F.I.
De Maria numquam satis: Of Mary never enough. Is this saying of Bernard, echoed by many other saints, a mere overflow of sentimental piety, or can it be sustained as a rational approach to theology? Fr. Charles Anthony Mary, a Franciscan Friar of the Immaculate, draws from the Franciscan tradition to make the case for Mary-Maxing, culminating in the cutting-edge (and controversial) Mariology of St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe.
A high court case that challenges the rule of law
In the end, therefore, the most important question before the Supreme Court is not whether sex-change operations are proper medical care, nor whether minors should be protected, nor even whether the Constitution allows state regulations of these treatments. The real issue is whether legal decisions must be guided by evidence and logic.
Perseverance—and thick skin!—required for apostolic work
What is important is not that this or that proposed work should succeed or fail, but that more people are drawn to Christ and the Church, and that more people in the Church ask what they can do to strengthen their own faith and the faith of others.
Safeguarding the Republican Right-to-Life Agenda
The unfortunate revised stance of the GOP threatens the historical (but always tenuous) pro-life position of the Republican Party. Mainstream Republican pro-life support was always a response to organized pro-life advocacy. So the upcoming months are crucial.
St. Henry Walpole—Upon the Death of M. Edmund Campion
"You thought perhaps when learned Campion dies, / His pen must cease, his sugared tongue be still; / But you forgot how loud his death it cries / How far beyond the sound of tongue and quill."
Fr. Carlos Martins, Sir Alec Guinness, and what has been lost
Those are the two issues at which Fr. Martins is at the center this week. Where stands the Church, 22 years after the first wave of clergy sex abuse scandals. And what are we to make of celebrity exorcists (or at least, of this one). In this column, I will address the first of those two.
Who Was Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite?
Whenever you see “Pseudo-“ in front of a name like this, it means we don’t really know who the person was. This Church father wrote under the name of Dionysius the Areopagite, a convert of St. Paul mentioned in the book of Acts. But the documents attributed to him were written hundreds of years later. Nevertheless, this unknown pseudonymous author was hugely influential for some of the most important fathers and doctors of the Church.
What to make of the ongoing preoccupation with Synodality
A true Christian constantly re-examines his or her habits. The goal is to never obscure Christ, ignore Christ or take Christ for granted. Bishops and pastors will have to take even “synodality” with a grain of salt, for no mere process assures good outcomes. When consultation and collaboration become ends in themselves, they will always be used by those who do not accept this or that Catholic teaching, and so will at times get in the way of decisive and effective action.
Anatomy of a Compromised Conscience
Did Pilate himself convert to the Catholic faith, as some traditions hold? We don’t know. But we remember Pontius Pilate by name every time we recite the Creed.
Fear all around me
That someone— or the software he had remotely installed on my car’s computer— thought I should know that winter weather was on its way. Thank you, my solicitous friend, but actually I knew that already
Joseph Bottum’s An Anxious Age never got the Catholic attention it deserved
With the 2025 Jubilee almost upon us, I am remembering the Great Jubilee of 2000. What a time of excitement in our Church. Of hope for its future and for the future of the world. Looking back from the perspective of 25 years later, I can’t help but wonder: What the heck happened? All that hoopla about a “New Evangelization” of the West and how the Third Millennium would be a “New Springtime” of Faith. Where did it all go?
The Simplicity of Advent
How to keep Advent simply and intentionally, by carving out time for family and building one's family story in liturgical living.
St. John Henry Newman—Reverence, a Belief in God’s Presence
"They are the class of feelings we should have—yes, have in an intense degree—if we literally had the sight of Almighty God; therefore they are the class of feelings which we shall have, if we realize His presence."
The curious background of the Pope’s ‘fixer’
Personnel is policy. The Vatican’s professed desire for transparency and accountability count for little if the institutional secrets and the confidential finances are consigned to a prelate whose track record suggests that he sees no evil.
Halos for two: Pier Giorgio Frassati and Carlo Acutis
Clearly one of the things that makes these two figures so widely popular is how far they had progressed along the path to holiness by the time they died at such young ages. For this reason, there has also been a significant effort to aim the books about them at comparatively young readers. But just because awareness of these two men is widespread does not mean that most of us know the outline of their lives.
Here’s why the ‘zero tolerance’ policy is going nowhere
Why is it still newsworthy, then, when a prominent Catholic calls for “zero tolerance” today? Answer: because for all the talk, for all the pledges, for all the touted policies and programs, the Vatican has not adopted a “zero tolerance” mentality regarding abuse.
Scorsese’s The Saints: an admirable portrayal of St. Joan of Arc
Catholics have reason to distrust Scorsese based on some of his past work, but having watched the first episode on St. Joan of Arc, I can give it fairly high praise. The short version is that the dramatization of St. Joan making up the bulk of the episode is excellently done, but the epilogue panel discussion with a group of liberal Catholics is not good (though also not as bad as I feared).
Lessons from Blessed Karl’s coronation
A ruler or lawmaker either acknowledges the source of his authority, performing his duties to the state as duties towards God, or he fails to acknowledge it, which is already to rebel against God and cut himself off from the source of his authority.
The Astonishing Promise of Jesus
The brevity of the Gospels allows the Church to hand down the words of Jesus throughout the centuries with ease but encourages endless theological reflection.
Yes, Catholics should celebrate the Pilgrims’ Thanksgiving
Thanksgiving is one of my favorite holidays. Every September 8th my family and I gather together to commemorate America’s first thanksgiving, the Mass celebrated in Florida in 1565 expressing gratitude to almighty God that the Spanish crown claimed the future sunshine state for God and...
The dangerous ‘spirit of synodality’
Pope Francis has made it clear from the outset that the real purpose of the Synod was to begin a process, to create a new understanding of what it means to be the Church, to usher in a new “synodal” approach to Catholicism.
A must-read biography of Fr. Joseph Fessio
We are introduced to the tremendous vitality and surprising escapades of one of the great pioneers of Catholic renewal over the past sixty years. From the way Joe Fessio drove a car in his teens through the legendary walking retreats he led in Europe to his remarkable institutional achievements in the United States, Fr. Buckley’s biography captures the essence of a priest who managed to accomplish great things for God from within a religious order in serious decline.
Job and St. Augustine in one film: The Tree of Life (2011)
The Tree of Life may well be the greatest movie ever made, owing to its unmatched poetic power. Heavily inspired by the book of Job and St. Augustine's Confessions, director Terrence Malick gives profound spiritual and cosmic scope to the story of an ordinary family in 1950s Texas. Seen through the memory of a present-day narrator seeking the traces of God in his past, it offers archetypal yet vivid picture of family life and how we gain, lose, and recover our awareness of "love smiling through all things".
Advent-Christmas Ebook released for new liturgical year
Our free liturgical year ebooks offer a rich set of resources for families to use in living the liturgical year in the domestic church. Resources include biographies of the saints to match each feast day, histories of the various celebrations and devotions, descriptions of customs from around the world, prayers, activities and recipes.
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