Catholics who take the texts of Vatican II seriously refuse to truckle to, and in fact resist, those cultural aggressors who think of human beings as mere twitching bundles of morally-equal desires. Continue Reading »
Ross Douthat’s summary of the state of the Catholic conversation (“Catholic Ideas and Catholic Realities,” August/September) demonstrates the author’s typical precision in observing his own intellectual communities. On multiple readings I can find nothing substantially to disagree with; and . . . . Continue Reading »
Since being appointed bishop of Springfield, Illinois in 2010, I have been asked many times about the matter of Holy Communion for Sen. Richard Durbin, whose home is in Springfield. In April 2004, Sen. Durbin’s pastor, Msgr. Kevin Vann (now Bishop Kevin Vann of Orange, California), said he would . . . . Continue Reading »
In 1932, while covering a worker’s strike in Washington, D.C., Dorothy Day said a prayer. Since her conversion to Catholicism, she felt that she could no longer join such strikes. Joining a strike was an expression of solidarity—and fundamental philosophical differences prevented true . . . . Continue Reading »
For the last fifty years, from the Second Vatican Council onward, it made sense to speak of an American Catholicism fully reconciled to liberal democracy. On the fringes there were still some noteworthy anti-liberal and radical Catholic periodicals and writers, but the mainstream was defined by the . . . . Continue Reading »
A century ago, a little-known Belgian artist named Albert Servaes became famous when cardinals at the Holy Office in Rome censured him for depicting Jesus Christ in a way they considered unsuitable for Catholics. The story made the front page of American Art News in New York. In this . . . . Continue Reading »