Leroy Huizenga

Barack Obama’s victory has crushed conservatism, ended the Republic, and ushered in a thousand years of darkness. Or such was the mood last week among many political conservatives, who saw this election’s results as the sign of the death of our free republic, the people surrendering the risks and rewards of liberty for the certain thin gruel of a dole. And many traditional Christians spoke about the reelection of our American President in even darker, apocalyptic tones, as if the man were Nero redivivus… . Continue Reading »

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops has launched a new website dedicated to religious liberty, First American Freedom . Why? From the section ” Threats to Religious Freedom “: Today, religious freedom is under threat throughout the United States—at all levels of . . . . Continue Reading »

David D. Kagan, the Bishop of Bismarck and thus my bishop, had a letter on conscience and citizenship read at masses throughout North Dakota last weekend. Well-written, informed, and informative, it was supposed to be under embargo until then, but, being delivered to parishes ahead of time, it was leaked to a North Dakota state senator who perceived in it subtle politicking… . Continue Reading »

Miracles: The Credibility of the New Testament Accounts by Craig S. Keener Baker Academic, 1172 pages, $59.99 On October 13, 1917, seventy thousand Portuguese witnessed the sun dancing in the sky at Fátima, the conclusion of a series of visitations of the Virgin Mary to three shepherd . . . . Continue Reading »

A brouhaha is brewing in the Great State of my beloved North Dakota at the moment. Bishop David Kagan, my ordinary here in Bismarck, and also apostolic administrator of the vacant Diocese of Fargo, has composed a letter concerning conscience and citizenship as Catholics in North Dakota prepare to . . . . Continue Reading »

“What about Vatican II?” I asked my Catholic friend, in response to his assertion that Catholic doctrine is stable while the Church’s understanding thereof develops. We were in college together, young bucks full of vim and vigor, passionate about our common Christian faith, even while we stood on opposite confessional sides of the Reformation divide… . Continue Reading »

Dr. Denis McNamara of the Liturgical Institute at Mundelein Seminary in Illinois is an expert on ecclesiastical architecture and is a major figure in today’s liturgical renewal, consulting on many church renovation projects. He’s the author of Catholic Church Architecture and the Spirit . . . . Continue Reading »

From the United States’ Conference of Catholic Bishops: Last night, the following statement was made [by Vice President Joe Biden—the USCCB uses the passive here presumably to avoid charges of partisanship] during the Vice Presidential debate regarding the decision of the U.S. . . . . Continue Reading »

But a love for tradition is not nostalgia. I’ve been teaching Flannery O’Connor in an online course, The Catholic Imagination , and in her gruesome story “A Good Man Is Hard to Find” the characters of the grandmother, Red Sammy, and the Misfit indulge in nostalgia, the . . . . Continue Reading »

This Sunday, October 7, Pope Benedict will name Hildegard of Bingen a Doctor of the Church, having in early May extended her cult to the universal Church to remove all doubt about her status as a saint. Doctors of the Church are saints whose sanctity and doctrine have benefited the Church to great advantage. What might Benedict wish for us to learn from St. Hildegard, whom he has called “a true master of theology and a great scholar of the natural sciences and of music”? … Continue Reading »