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All Catholic commentary from May 2026
How preoccupation with sexual sin can stunt holiness
Even we devout Catholics can go down a rabbit hole when interpreting Our Lady of Fatima’s warning about the sins which most often send us to hell—and this rabbit hole is one among many that we ought to know only too well by now. In the case considered here, if we do not find sins of impurity in our selected rabbit hole, we may miss the point of her Portuguese apparitions. For what if we find sins of self-righteousness or lack of generosity or attachment to our own wills?
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Atheist Comedians
Irony requires the ability to contrast the way things are with the way things should be. Religion has similar qualities.
Confronting deep-rooted Evangelical hostility in Trump vs. Leo fallout
For the sake of the causes we share, Evangelicals should know how their recent cheering for attacks on the Holy Father looks to their Catholic allies.
The SSPX, the German bishops, and the parable of the two sons
The unavoidable implication is that “an ordinary parish” is not associated with the true Church of Jesus Christ—and the SSPX is. That is a claim the Sovereign Pontiff cannot accept.
Our dumb and deaf spirits are hard to drive out
When we live with ultimate meaninglessness long enough, all that matters is the effort to enjoy the “now”. We learn to take our pleasures where we can and for as long as we can. We lose our desire and even perhaps our capacity for eternity. We accept the inevitability of death by frittering our time away in present pleasures. If there is an after-life, we will enjoy it; and if there is no after life, well then, we will no longer care.
Trump’s false charge against Pope Leo
If we are willing to give President Trump the benefit of the doubt, and assume that his intent is more reasonable than what his actual words convey, we should extend the same courtesy to the Pontiff.
Is Brideshead Revisited (1981) the perfect book-to-screen adaptation?
Brideshead Revisited is much discussed as a beloved Catholic novel. But it is also perhaps the only instance of a great book getting a screen adaptation that is equally good - almost to the point of being interchangeable with the book. We refer, of course, to the 1981 miniseries, not the 2008 movie! James Majewski, Nathan Douglas, and Thomas Mirus discuss what makes this series such a great work of adaptation.
Speaking about art and God in L.A.
Thomas Mirus is giving the keynote address at the Thomistic Artists Guild conference in L.A. on May 30.
A Modern Seminarian’s Dictionary, Revisited
CONSCIENCE: The final arbiter of the correctness of one’s action, always to be guided by the latest in Church dissent.
The Great Persecution
The first decade of the fourth century, from about 302 to 313, is one of the most remarkable in history. In that short time, the Church would go from the worst of persecutions to the beginning of an unprecedented new era of peace and favor. In what we might consider a foreshadowing of the Church’s trials and final victory at the end of the world, the Great Persecution was merely the labor pains for the birth of Christendom.
The Great Persecution
The first decade of the fourth century, from about 302 to 313, is one of the most remarkable in history. In that short time, the Church would go from the worst of persecutions to the beginning of an unprecedented new era of peace and favor. In what we might consider a foreshadowing of the Church’s trials and final victory at the end of the world, the Great Persecution was merely the labor pains for the birth of Christendom.
The Vatican’s ‘lavender mafia’ strikes again
Unfortunately the use of Vatican working statements to promote dissent from Church teachings, particularly on the issue of homosexuality, has become a regular feature of synods.
5.34 St. John of the Cross: The Mystical Doctor
St. John of the Cross (1542 - 1591) Arguably the most famous of the mystics, St. John of the Cross is well known for the concept of the “dark night of the soul.” He was the “first friar” of the Discalced Carmelites, co-founder of the reform movement with St. Teresa of Avila, and one of the greatest Spanish poets of all time.
The deception and danger of “Reproductive Freedom Amendments”
The purpose of this study of reproductive freedom amendments is to alert Americans who have the gift of Faith or a personal understanding of the Natural Law, so that they can counter the tactics, policies, and actions of those who are advancing what they mislabel as “Reproductive Freedom”, but which undermines the blessings of natural birth, children, and a well-ordered liberty within the social order.
St. John Henry Newman—Mysteries in Religion: On the Ascension
"I will attempt to suggest to you on the present Festival some of the incentives to wonder and awe, humility, implicit faith, and adoration, supplied by the Ascension of Christ."
Addressing Gen Z Catholics and the New Jew-Hatred
The best guy to address the New Jew-Hatred is Gideon Lazar, a Gen Z Jewish convert to Catholicism. Because the New Jew-Hatred is not the Old Jew-Hatred and Gideon understands it way better than we do.
Giving More than We Take
“And lo, I am with you always, to the close of the age.” Either the promise is piously sentimental, or it carries an astonishing truth.
The limits of a wife’s obedience
No one could reasonably claim that today’s predominant error is to overemphasize the Scriptural injunction for wives to obey their husbands. Rather, this doctrine is commonly denied, or downplayed and relativized into oblivion. Yet there is an opposing error. Lately a few advocates of wifely obedience have been using a formula which is meant to sound traditional, but is not: namely, that wives must obey their husbands “in all things but sin”.
The importance of Pope Leo’s first encyclical
The timing of this encyclical is excellent; the Pope will weigh in before most people have formed their own opinions on the matter. His guidance could set the “gold standard” for moral analysis of AI.
A defense of the Charismatics
But what most shocks me is the calumny against Charismatics, Catholic or Protestant, that they don’t care about truth. I’ve known Charismatics for 35 years. How I wish that we in the rest of the Christian world cared about the truth—and showed as much love—as they do!
Clear thinking in a crazy culture
The book is informally and even entertainingly written without ever sacrificing the clarity of the necessary arguments. Many of the chapters draw on encounters with (anonymous) students and scholars whom the author has encountered in real situations over the years. But as we should all know by now, a lack of moral clarity lies at the root of a great many of the errors we embrace—and on the part of many this lack is more or less deliberate.
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