Pope Pius XI, fearless enemy of totalitarian ideologies and defender of Christian truth, died seventy-five years ago today. A champion of humanity before the forces of oppression, he remains largely, unjustly, forgotten.
Few leaders were such scourges of Bolshevism as Pius XI. He first began to detest Communism in 1920, when he was the apostolic nuncio to Poland. That year, the Polish Army miraculously defeated the Soviet Union at the Battle of Warsaw. Most diplomats had fled Warsaw in a cowardly panic, incorrectly predicting a Bolshevik victory. The future pope was an exception. A true pastor, he refused to leave his faithful at a trying time and gave them spiritual support as they fought the Soviets. This forged a strong mutual friendship between Pius XI and Marshal Jozef Pilsudski, pre-war Poland’s leader and military genius. Continue Reading »
Though Abraham Lincoln was neither baptized nor joined a church of any kind, he was the most spiritually minded president in American history. His faith was wrought on the anvil of anguish, both personal and national, and because of this he has much to teach us in our own age of anxiety.Some historians interpret Lincoln as a proto-secularist, not only because he never professed Christian faith in a public way but also because he made a number of skeptical comments about Christian teaching in his early years. But it’s well to remember that even great people of faith, including Mother Teresa, experience dark nights of the soul. John Calvin once said that all true faith is tinged by doubt. Continue Reading »
On Saturday Eric Holder announced he will apply the recent Supreme Court Windsor ruling as widely as possible. “In every courthouse, in every proceeding and in every place where a member of the Department of Justice stands on behalf of the United States, they will strive to ensure that same-sex marriages receive the same privileges, protections and rights as opposite-sex marriages under federal law.” Continue Reading »
I have an awkward confession to make. When I hear American Catholics cheerlead the New Evangelization, I’m sorry to say, I become very skeptical very quickly. As they unpack their bold vision for evangelical reform, I start feeling a lot like Mugatu, who, in an exasperated breakdown at the end of the 2001 film Zoolander, famously exclaimed, “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills!” Continue Reading »
Since Jack Kevorkian first made headlines in 1990, the media have touted assisted suicide by the dying and severely disabled in positive, sometimes even glowing, terms. Continue Reading »
J Paul Grayson, a sociology professor at York University in Toronto, received a request from a male student asking to be excused from participating in a group assignment, in which the student would have been obliged to converse with female students. Grayson said no to the student but decided to use . . . . Continue Reading »
Speaking at a party retreat, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor told his colleagues that the party had spent too much time talking about the concerns of business owners and entrepreneurs and not enough about the concerns of that majority who were not (and in many cases did not want to be) business . . . . Continue Reading »
Papal approbation being no bad thing, I was delighted to learn that Pope Francis, in a homily a few weeks ago, had suggested that his congregants learn the date of their baptisms and celebrate it—which is precisely what I have been proposing to audiences around the country this past year, when . . . . Continue Reading »
Is God more like a rock or the idea of a rock? If you had to choose one or the other, which would it be? On its face, the answer seems obvious. Rocks represent matter at its most obdurate state, while ideas transcend matter altogether. Ideas are the proper activity of the intellect. They live in . . . . Continue Reading »
On my coffee table, I have a book of classic rock posters—from The Who, to Led Zeppelin, to Nirvana, Metallica, and the Grateful Dead. The book was given to me by a brother bishop who knows that, in my earlier years, I listened to many of those bands.I’m a Catholic bishop, entrusted with . . . . Continue Reading »
