Leroy Huizenga

The University of Mary defines its mission and identity as “Christian, Catholic, and Benedictine.” Its Christian Leadership Center, which I direct, is intended to foster relationships among a wide variety of Christians, from Catholics to Pentecostals, from Lutherans to Baptists. But why? Why would a Roman Catholic University named after the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, conceived immaculate, ever sinless, assumed body and soul into heaven, deliberately describe its identity as “Christian” first, then “Catholic, and Benedictine”? … Continue Reading »

Franciscan University of Steubenville just dropped health insurance for its undergraduates, thus becoming one of the most prominent early victims of the Department of Health and Human Services mandate requiring all health plans to cover contraception, sterilization, and abortifacient drugs. Today the Catholic Church has found itself engaged in a new Kulturkampf, a cultural struggle initiated by State aggression against the libertas ecclesiae, the freedom of the Church to manage her own affairs so that her members might flourish in virtue and serve their fellow citizens freely… . Continue Reading »

It’s an age of widespread cultural and ecclesial malaise: the State encroaches ever more into the affairs of the church; the clergy is indolent and ineffective, oft corrupt and unchaste; the laity is poorly catechized; and Gnosticism advances. It’s the twelfth century, into which a Teutonic prophetess stepped, prepared to confront the spirits of the age with visions from on high. … Continue Reading »

FoxNews.com gave its link to its piece on Benedict’s Christmas homily at midnight mass the title, “Pope Laments Christmas Glitter,” while CNN.com ran with “Pope Shuns Consumerism.” But the bulk of the papal message at midnight mass was not one of lament, but joy and wonder. The somewhat misleading titles came from the antepenultimate paragraph. After reflecting on God’s humility in becoming the baby Jesus to seek our love, Benedict writes … Continue Reading »

In late June, my hometown of Minot, North Dakota, received devastating news: the Mouse River, which flows through the city’s valley, would crest at a record level, breach the levees, and inundate thousands of homes… . Continue Reading »

One the eve of Benedict’s recent trip to his German homeland, Der Spiegel ran a predictable story with the title Der Unbelehrbare”The Unteachable One”complete with an unflattering cover shot of the Pope. The piece presented the routine critique made by many Germans: this Pope refuses to accommodate the faith to the obvious truths of modernity; in his obstinacy or ignorance, he either won’t or can’t learn… . Continue Reading »

The Holy Bible: New International Version Zondervan 1152 pages, $27.99 With more than 400 million copies in print, the New International Version is the most popular English Bible. First published as a full Protestant Bible by the evangelical Committee on Bible Translation in 1978, the new edition . . . . Continue Reading »

A major reason I became Catholic concerned the Church’s profound theology of the Eucharist, which I (as a New Testament scholar) found squared well with the biblical witness, once certain modern lenses fell like scales from my eyes. Paul speaks of our real participation in the body and blood of Christ as that which unites the Church (1 Corinthians 10:16-17) and soon thereafter remarks that some of the Corinthians have fallen infirm and dropped over dead because of their eating and drinking unworthily (11:27-32)… . Continue Reading »

It’s an age of widespread cultural and ecclesial malaise: the State encroaches ever more into the affairs of the church; the clergy is indolent and ineffective, oft corrupt and unchaste; the laity is poorly catechized; and Gnosticism advances. It’s the twelfth century, into which a Teutonic prophetess stepped, prepared to confront the spirits of the age with visions from on high… . Continue Reading »

At Wheaton College I taught “Biblical Interpretation and Hermeneutics” to exceptionally bright, motivated and faithful students. I approached the course from the perspective of the history of interpretation, for, with Peter of Blois, I was convinced that we stand like dwarfs on the shoulders of giants, that premodern interpreters had much to say to us moderns who struggle to approach the Bible as Scripture instead of a random collection of textual artifacts. Desiring to rescue the works of the ancients from time’s oblivion and man’s neglect, each semester we sojourned through twenty-five hundred years of interpretation.… . Continue Reading »