Québec, a flourishing Catholic region for centuries, is now Catholicism’s empty quarter in the Western Hemisphere. There is no more religiously arid place between the North Pole and Tierra del Fuego; there may be no more religiously arid place on the planet. And it all happened in the blink of an eye. Continue Reading »
As a theologian, I am far more acquainted with the life-giving aspects of water than with its death-dealing ones, but the recent floods in my community of Baton Rouge have compelled me to reflect upon the latter. Continue Reading »
Descent into Hell is a complex portrait of the relationship between the living and the dead. It's a book of apologetics written in the style of horror. And it's a book about acceptance. Continue Reading »
He was born four years after Kaiser Wilhelm II ascended the German imperial throne; he died nearly a century later, in the same decade that witnessed the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of Germany. He was drafted as a soldier in both world wars and experienced firsthand the Nazi reign of terror in between. Few artists have lived so fully, or recorded so faithfully, such a vast sweep of human history. Continue Reading »
These days, there are no Christians with currency as intellectuals, which is to say as articulate public voices who interpret present political and cultural trends for a broad, educated audience. Continue Reading »
Excluding the terminally ill from suicide prevention campaigns is discrimination and a form of abandonment. Dying isn’t the same as being dead; it is a stage, albeit a difficult stage, of living. Continue Reading »
Being the candidate of social-conservative conviction politics was Buchanan’s appeal. But in today's political landscape, social conservatives need to reach beyond their base. Continue Reading »
The common orientation of priest and people during the Liturgy of the Eucharist symbolizes—or perhaps better, lives out—the Church’s conviction that the Mass is an act of worship offered to the Thrice-Holy God. Continue Reading »
The American pastime offers a balm for our restless, competitive, and often militaristic culture. Continue Reading »
Any Catholic who rejects Catholic teaching, or who technically accepts it but minimizes it to the point of insignificance, is not a “moderate” Catholic but a dissenter, or one seeking approval from the world (a temptation Our Lord warns against)—and should be identified as such. Continue Reading »
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