Blood of the Covenant: Looking Ahead to This Sunday’s Celebration of Corpus Christi...
All of today’s readings are set in the context of the Passover. The First Reading recalls the old covenant celebrated at Sinai following the first Passover and the Exodus. In sprinkling the blood of the covenant on the Israelites, Moses was symbolizing God’s desire in this covenant to make them His family, His “blood” relations.
The Hallmark liturgical calendar...
Did you celebrate Trinity Sunday yesterday? At the Vatican, the same feast was on the liturgical calendar, but the focus was on the First World Children’s Day. On January 1 we celebrate the feast of Mary, Mother of God. But if you read the newspapers the next day, the stories from Rome will be about the World Day of Peace...
This Is GK Chesterton’s 150th Birthday — Here’s Why He Remains So Relevant Today...
Writing about the defiant and flamboyant G.K. Chesterton is fraught. It requires quoting him, and then one quotation piles upon another, and it seems a disservice to the reader for the author to interrupt Chesterton’s words with his own. So what results is a compendium of quotations, more a small anthology than an article...
Argentine archbishop resigns abruptly as former diocese reels...
Archbishop Gabriel Antonio Mestre stood down as the Metropolitan Archbishop of La Plata May 27, at the age of 55, two decades ahead of the typical retirement age for diocesan bishops. Mestre had previously served as bishop of the similarly named Diocese of Mar del Plata from 2017 to 2023, when he was named Archbishop of La Plata, succeeding the now Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, the Vatican’s doctrinal chief.
How You Can Get Plenary Indulgences This Summer...
Summer presents a spiritual surprise. Several plenary indulgences are possible for you, your family and friends to gain for yourself or to apply to any soul in purgatory. These indulgences are in addition to those particular ones the Church allows on a daily basis — and which so few people realize are available. We’ve discussed daily ones before and will review them later, but let’s begin with those falling during summer.
The Pursuit of Happiness...
Sociology is the softest of the sciences – according to sociological surveys – and its practitioners, with noteworthy exceptions, largely lean – and more than lean – Left. Which may explain why a recent New York Times essay seems puzzled and not a little irritated by the fact, noted by the sociologists, that conservatives are measurably happier...
Who will hold the keys of St. Peter after Pope Francis? The ups and downs of expertise...
Support and pray for those carrying the cross of infertility...
From Hinduism to Catholicism: How Soon-to-Be-Saint Carlo Acutis Inspired a Man to Convert...
In an interview, Rajesh Mohur shared the story of his spiritual journey and how he came to know Acutis, the computer-coding teen who was the first millennial beatified in the Catholic Church and a patron of the [August 2023] World Youth Day. Mohur grew up on a small island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa, about 500 miles east of Madagascar...
News coverage in the whirlwind, or theater of the absurd?
Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity: In Jesus We See the Whole Trinity — and Join In...
Transgender Hermit Announcement Poses Questions About Church’s Teaching on Religious Life...
What did Harrison Butker get right? And what did he get wrong?
Friendship in Marriage: What Really Makes a Home...
A key explanation of why happiness is so elusive is in the answer to this question: Why are some homes more a ‘home’ than others? This is no surprise, since the wise tell us that home is where our heart is at rest. Indeed, where else would our heart be at rest? Life experience brings to light what to the young might not be so clear. Real rest is elusive...
Mushrooms and other fungi — and our sins...
My wife and I have been battling mushrooms amid the fairly lush grass in one section of our front yard. We’ve had a few pop up here and there in recent years, but this Spring there have been scores of them (sometimes hundreds) popping up every few days, especially after significant rain, for they love moisture. According to the most knowledgeable authorities...
Francis Faces Another Mess in Argentina...
The processions, the news, and the papal apology...
If you’re American, I hope you were able to celebrate Memorial Day yesterday with some time off from work or school, and looking forward to a good summer. Some of you, I suspect, went to a cemetery to pray for America’s war dead. Some of you went down the shore. I spent the day with my family...
Is the Pope’s PR safety net misrepresenting his use of slang?
One curious feature of the modern papacy is the informal, but very real, PR safety net which grows up almost spontaneously around every pontiff. It’s forged in part by the Vatican’s own official communications channels, but even more so by outside commentators and media platforms heavily invested in selling a given pope’s story to the world.
19 Points of Advice for Fighting the Devil...
The exorcists I consult occasionally for articles have personally seen a lot of the devil’s theatrics: levitation, room temperature suddenly and drastically dropping, people knowing foreign languages they never studied, foul odors, objects flying and other antics intended to intimidate the exorcist. Yet, we are told not to fear evil. The exorcists do, however, strongly warn us to stay away from it and use the protection God gives us.
Rome Today Isn’t What It Was...
7 Enchanting Islands That You Can Walk to at Low Tide...
Very few people realize the carnage and abandonment that’s part of the IVF process ...
An Introduction to St. Augustine’s “Confessions”...
If any single book can claim to be the quintessential Christian classic it must be St. Augustine’s Confessions. There are other claimants to the accolade, to be sure. One thinks perhaps of Augustine’s other masterpiece, The City of God, or the Summa Theologica of St. Thomas Aquinas, or possibly, if one is seeking lighter fare...
Was Abraham Reprehensible for Pretending that Sarah was His Sister?
Carbon dating reveals true age of purported tunics of St. Peter and St. John...
Do You Ever Feel Envy? Me Too. This Is Why We Feel It — and How to Let It Go...
Bertrand Russell, a philosopher of the twentieth century, wrote that envy is one of the most powerful causes of unhappiness. If we want to live well, we need to know the paths to follow and the paths to avoid. Envy can become a prison we create for ourselves. Why do we feel envy? And how can we break free from it? Or, better yet, escape it in the first place?
The Moral And Ethical Challenges Posed By Artificial Intelligence...
Is Vatican’s Arlington Carmel decree a win for due process?
Get this entire Catholic website as an instant digital download...
The full contents of the New Advent website are available as a digital download. It includes the Catholic Encyclopedia, Church Fathers, Summa, Bible and more — and it's only $19.99...
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