William Doino Jr.

While at a conference in Rome to honor previous Nobel Peace Prize winners, Jody Williams was dismayed to learn that Pope Francis had refused a meeting with her fellow Nobel laureate, the Dalai Lama—the exiled spiritual leader of Tibet, a region which is now under Chinese domination. Continue Reading »

Born in Britain in 1923, and educated at Eton and Oxford, Philip Trower is a Catholic writer of notable achievement. This alone merits attention—as there is much talk about the relative dearth of Catholic authors today—but Trower’s life and work offer something more, as they speak to questions that are being asked within the Church today. Continue Reading »

It is now widely acknowledged that the media’s initial reporting of the pope’s recent speech on creation and evolution—with notable exceptions—was a journalistic debacle. Despite blaring headlines that Francis had finally placed the Church behind evolution, he was merely repeating long-standing Catholic teaching on the compatibility between faith and science. Continue Reading »

During the 1970s Paul Williams’s talents as a singer, songwriter, composer and actor were in high demand. His song, “Evergreen”— sung by Barbara Streisand for the film A Star is Born—won an Academy Award and reached number one on the pop charts. He produced similar hits for the Carpenters, Helen Reddy, and David Bowie. He wrote the celebrated score for Bugsy Malone, and appeared in numerous films himself—stealing the show as a wisecracking bootlegger in Smokey and the Bandit. On television, Williams became a ubiquitous presence, co-hosting the Merv Griffin and Mike Douglas shows, and appearing on the Tonight Show an astonishing forty-eight times. In 1979, Williams became even more famous when he wrote The Rainbow Connection, the theme for Jim Henson’s Muppet Movie. Continue Reading »

As the World Series comes to an end, and with it another post-season, there was one noticeable absence: Yankee shortstop, Derek Jeter. During the last two decades, Jeter, the Yankee captain, has been a constant, larger-than-life presence in the playoffs and World Series, thrilling fans everywhere. But not this year. The usually proficient New York Yankees failed to even qualify for the playoffs, let alone the World Series, making the 2014 season-Jeter’s last-especially poignant.
When Jeter played in his final games in September, Gatorade Continue Reading »

As the extraordinary synod on the family comes to a close, one thing has become abundantly clear: Many commentators who made fanciful predictions about what Pope Francis and the synod would do have turned out to be wrong. Continue Reading »

She was called “La Popessa,” depicted as the iron lady of the Vatican, and said to have wielded more power in Rome than any woman in centuries. She is the subject of numerous books, movies, and even a musical—often more fiction than fact. But the real story of Mother Pascalina Lehnert—the life-long assistant to Pope Pius XII—is still not widely known. Now, thanks to the English translation of her memoirs, His Humble Servant, she speaks for herself, to a far larger audience. Continue Reading »

As the Synod on the Family opens this week, Catholics and other attentive observers should be careful about the way the media covers the unfolding events. Continue Reading »

When Dietrich von Hildebrand died in 1977, his passing went largely unnoticed. The New York Times, to its credit, did publish an obituary—brief but respectful—and several other secular and religious journals followed suit. Most noted that this eminent German Catholic thinker held a Doctor of Philosophy degree from the University of Gottingen, and was teaching at the University of Munich in 1933. When Hitler came to power, Dietrich was appalled, and left for his birthplace in Florence. 
Continue Reading »

A recent story in the L.A. Times about the Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops devoted to the pastoral care of families, offered this provocative view: “Vatican to Debate Teachings on Divorce, Birth Control, Gay Unions.” Continue Reading »