PROTESTANT PARANOIA? R. R. Reno confirms Samuel Gregg’s suspicion that First Things is tempering its embrace of free markets (“Building Bridges, Not Walls,” November). Perhaps he can confirm—or deny—whether the journal is also rethinking its commitment to the free exercise of . . . . Continue Reading »
One Sunday in high school, we went to the Anglo-Catholic parish where my headmaster served as an assistant priest. Catechized by evangelical Episcopalians and Presbyterians, I believed that the Bible was divinely inspired by God. But I had never seen it treated as such in a physical or ritual way. . . . . Continue Reading »
Producing a genuinely beautiful translation of the Roman Missal would go some distance in satisfying young Catholics’ hunger for beauty. Continue Reading »
Sacrosanctum concilium declared that the liturgy should be “freed from unnecessary repetition.” But the Roman Missal's many repetitions are intentional—and express eternity. Continue Reading »
On the Road to Vatican II: German Catholic Enlightenment and Reform of the Churchby ulrich l. lehnerfortress, 414 pages, $49 On the Road to Vatican II focuses on German and Austrian theological debates in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as examples of the Catholic Enlightenment. Historians . . . . Continue Reading »
When I was a child in parochial school, we began each morning with daily Mass. My mother worked nights, and no one in my family was an early riser. I inevitably arrived late to church. The nuns stared disapprovingly as I slipped in among my more punctual classmates in our assigned pews. This . . . . Continue Reading »