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What came first: Creation, or God’s covenants with the People of Israel and the New Israel, the Church?
The question may seem odd, even silly. Chronologically, it’s obvious that the …
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4/4/24
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Twenty-four years ago this week, I was in Jerusalem to cover Pope John Paul II’s epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land for NBC. After going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pray at the 11th …
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3/28/24
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In the course of an insightful essay on Vladimir Putin’s challenge to civilization, Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, observed that, amidst the general decline of the West, “the …
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3/21/24
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His neighbors in 1940s Oklahoma would have found it hard to imagine the boy they knew as Stanley Francis Rother as a future martyr, and the first beatified American parish priest. Young Stan did …
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3/14/24
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Two years ago, Russian forces attempted a Hitlerian blitzkrieg in Ukraine. According to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, its goal was to eradicate Ukraine: both the Ukrainian state and the Ukrainian …
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3/5/24
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When I first met Yigal Carmon in November 1988, he was counter-terrorism adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, a position he held under Shamir’s successor, Yitzhak Rabin, until …
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2/15/24
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My friend and colleague Carl Trueman recently observed that “the West is no longer a consortium of serious cultures.” To which I am sorely tempted to add, “…or serious …
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2/1/24
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In the apostolic letter Ad Theologiam Promovendam (To Promote Theology), issued by Pope Francis on Nov. 1, 2023, the Church was urged to do theology contextually: as the motu proprio put it, theology …
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1/18/24
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Advent-2023 is as short as Advent can be, so this annual column on Christmas gift books that will inspire, entertain, inform, or all of the above comes a bit earlier than usual; it also includes …
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12/14/23
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With the God of the Bible having largely disappeared from public consciousness in Great Britain, the closest thing to a replacement deity is the British National Health Service. Created after World …
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12/7/23
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Shortly after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, I noted in this column and elsewhere that the entire episode — including the fouling of the public space by the aggressor’s genocidal …
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11/16/23
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By their vocabulary, you shall know them? Well, to a considerable degree. And in these early November days, when the Church celebrates all the saints in glory and prays for those who yearn to join …
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11/9/23
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Those most enthusiastic about the Synod on Synodality that opens on October 4 want to say that it’s the most important Catholic event since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) – a …
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10/12/23
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Ever since the 1596 Union of Brest reestablished full communion between the Bishop of Rome and several ecclesiastical jurisdictions in eastern Europe, what we know today as the Ukrainian Greek …
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10/5/23
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It’s a rare occasion when the word “unprecedented” can be used for a Church whose history extends over two millennia. Yet something unprecedented happened in the Polish village of …
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9/28/23
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“Pope Francis has just given the Vatican his Ratzinger,” declared one July 2 headline; “Pope Francis Finds His Ratzinger,” announced another, four days later. Both quickie …
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9/7/23
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On first encountering Father Victor B. Galeone at Baltimore’s St. Paul Latin High School in September 1965, my freshman classmates and I didn’t imagine we were meeting the future bishop …
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6/29/23
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Few of the following qualify as “beach reading;” they all qualify as good reading.
In graduate school, I was informed that there was no such thing as “biblical …
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6/22/23
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A few days after Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s appointment as head of a Vatican “peace mission” to “help ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine” (as Vatican News put it), a …
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6/8/23
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In a recent article on the social doctrine of John Paul II in the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, Father Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi, SJ, had this to say about one facet of John …
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6/1/23
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