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All Catholic commentary from September 2025
The Church and the Jews, 3: What Is “Authentic Judaism”?
Just as Protestants have come up with novel, alternate forms of worship because of their rejection of the Mass, Rabbinic Judaism had to cope with its inability to enact the sacrifices of either the Mosaic Law or the Law of Love. While the Jews cannot follow the spirit of the Law without Christ, without the Temple they cannot even follow the letter. So God scattered the proud in their conceit.
Praying to Avoid Stupidities
We’re smart, but not as smart as we think we are. When we recognize our limitations before God and others, we paradoxically discover our freedom.
Triumph of the Heart is a film worthy of its subject, St. Maximilian Kolbe
James and Thomas review an outstanding and very intense new film about St. Maximilian Kolbe, directed and written by Anthony D'Ambrosio. Triumph of the Heart is set mostly in the starvation cell in Auschwitz as Kolbe and his companions try to find a way to die with hope and dignity. Don't miss it, in theaters Sept. 12.
Father Martin meets the Pope: a scandal, but not a surprise
We don’t know exactly how Father Martin’s private audience with the Pontiff was arranged. But it is easy to imagine that if he sought the audience, dozens of influential prelates would have supported his request, and few if any would have recommended against it.
Who are you? Who do others say that you are?
There is a growing feeling that we are adrift, that our lives are essentially meaningless, and that any sort of confident repose within our own being is actually impossible. Without this in the background, it is difficult to explain the modern emphasis on both identifying ourselves with our most felt attachments or “drives” and insisting that others affirm these attachments or drives as constituting a personal identity to be honored and celebrated.
The Church and the Jews: Recovering Tradition, w/ Gideon Lazar
The Church’s traditional teaching on the Jewish people has been largely forgotten, with many people under the false impression that Vatican II changed Catholic teaching. Gideon Lazar, theologian and Jewish convert to Catholicism, joins the podcast to discuss some widely misunderstood and controversial points about the relationship between the Church and the Jews.
Father Mankowski’s advice
Fresh from his installation or consecration Mass, the new bishop arrives at the chancery with, "Hi, everybody!" He's orthodox. He loves the Church. What does he do next? What are the priorities? Assume he has a gun.
The Church and the Jews, 4: Estranged Brothers
"For not all who are of Israel are Israel, nor are they all children of Abraham because they are his descendants; but 'It is through Isaac that descendants shall bear your name.' This means that it is not the children of the flesh who are the children of God, but the children of the promise are counted as descendants."
On the Catholic youth revival and Mother Teresa
Catholicism wasn’t just felt tip banners and lousy preaching and the same two or three terrible folk songs over and over again. Not when we had Mother Teresa.
Provocative Catholic and Islamic Parallels
I gave the customary blessing and departed peacefully through the crowd, like the Israelites passing through the Red Sea.
RKF Jr’s other crusade: moral standards for the organ-transplant industry
The scandal in Kentucky drew attention to the fact that along with the questionable diagnosis of “brain death,” transplant teams were also using the term “circulatory death” to justify a declaration of death in cases when the patient still appeared, by ordinary standards, to be alive.
On using the Church and her popes
I have never had a private audience with a pope. But while in Rome many years ago, my wife and I attended a public audience with Pope St. Paul VI. I have prayed for the Holy Father daily since that time…and I have also been convinced since that time that prayer is a more appropriate response to a papal audience, whether public or private, than is any self-serving post-audience “spin”.
5.19 St. Bonaventure: The Seraphic Doctor
St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) was the friend and colleague of St. Thomas Aquinas. What Aquinas was to the Dominicans, Bonaventure was to the Franciscans. St. Bonaventure is known as the second founder of the Franciscans because he was important for the organization of the order, and for bringing forth and expanding upon St. Francis’ spirituality.
Christian Raab, OSB—In Search of the Masculine Genius
"When attention to the theological meaning of femininity is not accompanied by reflection on masculinity, men are left without a sense of the existential and sacramental significance of their own sex."
Pope Leo on leading the sheep to safety
For newly ordained bishops, Pope Leo has stressed hardships related to ecclesial belonging and practice, passion and courage for the Gospel, and ethical challenges for pastors who wish to be guides. This is not the same emphasis that was so characteristic of Pope Francis, who focused on shepherds who accompany their sheep to the point of acquiring their smell.
Why the ‘good bishops’ keep disappointing the faithful
Unfortunately, despite the undeniable excitement that St. John Paul II generated, and the emergence of a new generation of enthusiastic “JPII Catholics,” that restoration had never materialized—at least not in the typical American parish—by the time Hitchcock was writing. Nor would it materialize in the years that followed, during the pontificate of Benedict XVI.
The other tragedy in Charlie Kirk’s assassination
Charlie went from what seemed a libertarian-only philosophy to being a committed Evangelical and an advocate of Christian conservatism. He was only 31 years old. Had he lived, might he also have become Catholic?
“Imagine” in St. Peter’s Square
If “Imagine” really is played in St. Peter’s Square tomorrow, it will be a repeat of what Kolbe saw a century ago – but this time, voluntarily hosted by the Vatican.
Roadmaps of Redemption and Salvation
Hilaire Belloc suggests American Capitalism is rooted in Calvinism. But as Belloc observes, the religion of Calvin disappeared, and capitalistic institutions remained!
The double scandal of the ‘DEI means God’ essay
If that is what DEI means—if DEI refers to the Providential action of the Almighty—then there was no point in writing this essay. The Trump administration cannot stop God’s work.
A blunt cardinal, a cautious Pontiff
Throughout the interview the Pope shows a marked tendency to presume that the current teachings and practices of the Catholic Church are right and should not change. In all these respects he contrasts sharply with his predecessor.
Leo XIII Against Modern Liberties
We must rediscover Pope Leo XIII's encyclical Libertas. Warning of the evil consequences of political liberalism, Leo also takes aim at various false liberties in which modern people take such pride, especially freedom of speech and of worship. As startling as Leo's teaching may be to modern Catholics, his fundamental principle is the one that Pope St. John Paul II enunciated when he said that "freedom consists not in doing what we like, but in having the right to do what we ought."
Evaluating Pope Leo in light of our own sins
In the first place, it is very important to emphasize that the Church is always in very bad shape, humanly speaking. There has never been a time in her history when she was not plagued by infidelity, laxness, various forms of persecution, attitudes drawn more from the worldly culture than from the faith, and widespread mediocrity (or worse) among bishops, priests, deacons, religious and laity—forms of mediocrity fairly typical of their respective states in life.
Money Mania—and other false idols
Who is the opposite of the Devil? If you answered Jesus, you are susceptible to Devil Mania. We are not Manichaean heretics, believing that a God of Good is opposed by a God of Evil.
He Who Gets Slapped (1924)
James and Thomas discuss the original creepy clown movie, the 1924 silent film He Who Gets Slapped, about a scientist who suffers a mental breakdown after his research and his wife are stolen by a wealthy baron, and becomes a circus clown with a rather singular act...
The Cupich assault on episcopal unity
By banning Durbin from Communion, Bishop Paprocki sent a strong message—not just to the senator, but to the world at large—that the Catholic Church is serious about the gravity of abortion, that politicians who support the practice are endangering their souls. Now by honoring Durbin, Cardinal Cupich is effectively erasing that message.
Three lessons from Erika Kirk
Erika Kirk's forgiveness of her husband's assassin, and the specific way she has gone about it, provide important lessons not only in forgiveness itself, but in how to handle victimhood, and in the distinction between forgiveness and the remission of temporal punishment.
5.20 St. Bonaventure: Prince of Mystics
St. Bonaventure (1221-1274) continued the legacy of St. Anthony and was the Franciscan counterpart to Aquinas. He’s called the second founder of the Franciscans, and the Prince of the Mystics, because he continued the mystical tradition of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, and he preserves for us the mystical spirituality of St. Francis of Assisi, as well as being an important influence on later mystics, such as St. John of the Cross.
Seamless garment? Cardinal Cupich mixes the metaphor.
Sadly, more often than not, the seamless garment argument has been used to place those who place more popular prudential causes on the same moral footing as those who prioritize the absolutely foundational (and frequently unpopular) right to life. Even worse, the seamless garment theory has very often been used to argue that those who defend the right to life of unborn children are morally at fault for not defending less foundational moral positions with equal vigor.
Leo XIII’s condemnation of liberalism
Leo XIII's Libertas is an essential encyclical to understand where the West has gone wrong. It contains the Church's doctrine on true liberty, as well as her condemnations of liberalism and unconditional freedom of worship and speech.
G.E.M. Anscombe—War and Murder
"Two attitudes are possible: one, that the world is an absolute jungle and that the exercise of coercive power by rulers is only a manifestation of this; and the other, that it is both necessary and right that there should be this exercise of power, that through it the world is much less of a jungle than it could possibly be without it, so that one should in principle be glad of the existence of such power, and only take exception to its unjust exercise."
Inescapable Religious Systems of Human Behavior
The rich man who neglected Lazarus recognized no religious authority (cf. Lk. 16:19-31). Thus, he lived. Thus, he died. Thus, he was judged.
Vandalism of Catholic churches: worse than reported
If indeed pastors are keeping incidents quiet, do you think that response is right or wrong?
Bishops Approve “Gay-Washed” Bible
You can see the problem in how the Times—and the NRSVue’s translators—frame the issue. It is an ideological novelty to say that the Bible makes moral distinctions between different types of homosexual relationships.
The Pope’s statement on the Durbin award: wrong, and irrelevant
”I am not terribly familiar with the particular case,” the Pope said as he began his response to a reporter’s question. That is an excellent reason for a Roman Pontiff to avoid any direct answer to a vexed political question.
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