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News Briefs
  • [ November 8, 2025 ] Pope Leo XIV meets with 15 abuse survivors at the Vatican News Briefs
  • [ November 8, 2025 ] Amid clown protesters, Boston men’s march for life remains ‘prayerful’ News Briefs
  • [ November 8, 2025 ] Florida announces $350 million false advertising lawsuit against Planned Parenthood News Briefs
  • [ November 8, 2025 ] The Gospel of Qaraqosh: 13th-century Syriac manuscript preserved in Vatican Library News Briefs
  • [ November 8, 2025 ] Cardinal Orlando Quevedo: Mindanao’s ‘Man of Peace’ and his lifelong mission of unity News Briefs

Articles by Dr. Randall B. Smith

About Dr. Randall B. Smith
Dr. Randall B. Smith is Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas in Houston, Texas, where he teaches courses on Moral Theology, History of Theology, Faith and Science, and Faith and Culture. His books include Reading the Sermons of Thomas Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (Emmaus), Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture of Medieval Paris (Cambridge), and From Here to Eternity: Reflections on Death, Immortality, and the Resurrection of the Body (Emmaus), due out in October 2022. He is also co-author of Why Believe? Volume 2: Answers to Life's Questions (Augustine Institute). Prof. Smith is the author of numerous articles in academic journals, but he also publishes a regular bi-weekly column for "The Catholic Thing."
The Dispatch

Opinion: Demonstrating what? Protesting who? And why?

October 22, 2025 Dr. Randall B. Smith 28

We recently had another round of “Not a King” demonstrations. As many have noted, we still do not have a king. So, good for us. One might have wished these crowds had been out in […]

Detail from 'Crucifixion' (c.1315) by Giotto di Bondone [WikiArt.org]
The Dispatch

Good Friday, Death, and Christian Life

April 18, 2025 Dr. Randall B. Smith 2

Mary weeps at the foot of the cross, and we weep with her. But we also must not stop there. For beyond the cross of […]

Features

Rights, Catholic Principles, and Prudence

March 17, 2025 Dr. Randall B. Smith 13

When we have political disputes in the country, one way of trying to help clarify matters would be to remind the interlocutors of the relevant moral principles that should govern their disagreement. Murdering innocent people […]

Features

Bishops, borders, and the (bully) pulpit

May 2, 2024 Dr. Randall B. Smith 32

“Texas Bishop Taking on Greg Abbott Gets Pope Francis’ Protection” is the curious title of an April 30th article in Newsweek. Bishop Mark Seitz of El Paso needs “protection” from Greg Abbott? Are there Texas […]

Features

When a virtue-signaling Archbishop is more politician than pastor

August 29, 2022 Dr. Randall B. Smith 42

I am loath to criticize the bishops, or even a bishop, for several reasons. First, it’s too easy, and it is too likely to make the writer popular in a bad way. Second, bishops are […]

Features

The rule of law, not of bishops

August 24, 2021 Dr. Randall B. Smith 40

I have for years been arguing that the sexual abuse scandal in the Catholic Church should have been — and in the future should be — adjudicated by Church tribunals according to the provisions of […]

Essay

In Memoriam: Thomas Gordon Smith (1948-2021)—A life spent serving Beauty

August 5, 2021 Dr. Randall B. Smith 7

I have long been fascinated by the project of the late Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905-1988) to renew the Catholic appreciation of beauty as a means by which God calls us to Himself. And yet, […]

The Dispatch

Things my wife wishes they had covered in RCIA

April 24, 2021 Dr. Randall B. Smith 42

I am an adult convert to Catholicism, as is my wife. She entered the Church after we were married and knew even less about Catholicism than I did when I entered, which wasn’t much. Because […]

Essay

What kind of relationship with God?

November 28, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 7

Editor’s note: This is the second part of a two-part essay. Read Part One here. One sometimes hears preachers exhort their congregations to enter into a “relationship” with God. I have no desire to diminish […]

Essay

What kind of relationship? On the “one”, the “many”, and things in the world

November 23, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 9

Editor’s note: This is Part 1 of a two-part essay. Read Part Two here. Should we consider “relation” a transcendental property of Being? That may seem an odd question. The transcendental properties of Being are […]

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The Dispatch: More from CWR

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    Carl E. Olson November 8, 2025 4
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    John M. Grondelski, Ph.D. November 7, 2025 12
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    Casey Chalk November 7, 2025 4
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    Father Jerry J. Pokorsky November 6, 2025 50

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  • Pope Leo XIV meets with 15 abuse survivors at the Vatican
  • Jesus Christ is the new and everlasting Temple
  • Amid clown protesters, Boston men’s march for life remains ‘prayerful’
  • Florida announces $350 million false advertising lawsuit against Planned Parenthood
  • The Gospel of Qaraqosh: 13th-century Syriac manuscript preserved in Vatican Library
  • Cardinal Orlando Quevedo: Mindanao’s ‘Man of Peace’ and his lifelong mission of unity
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  • Peter D. Beaulieu: Noting your list, methinks Study Group #9 had better recheck their homework toward "[t]heological criteria [?] and synodal methodologies [?]…

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Also on CWR
No Picture
General

Walking the Way of the Cross for the Unborn

Carl E. Olson April 4, 2012 0

From the California Catholic Daily: In 1975, an informal group of 50 Catholics from San Francisco’s South Bay decided, in the words of one, “to offer prayer and penance in union with the Passion of […]

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