Extra, extra! News and views for Wednesday, September 17, 2025

Prayer and the Peace of Christ Today – “The Catholic tradition proposes that the only adequate answer to the social horror we are witnessing is the peace of Christ, and the saints and martyrs of this tradition discovered this peace through a return to contemplative prayer. Contemplative prayer as an encounter with the saving mystery of Christ is America’s only real hope.” Contemplative Prayer and Hope for America (What We Need Now)

Shifting Gears on the Synodal Church? – “Let’s not forget that the structures of ‘synodality’ were imposed – at least attempted – on the universal Church.” MetaSynodosis (Charlotte Was Both – WordPress)

A Modern Socrates – “Charlie Kirk’s method, which he practiced on college campuses all over the country, was to invite into a public dialogue people who disagreed with him.” He Died with a Microphone in His Hand (First Things)

Gay Marriage Did That – “For the sake of the least of these, we must either restore the heavens or answer for the hell we’ve unleashed on children.” Gay Marriage Harms Kids. It’s Time To End It (And Here’s How) (The Federalist)

Catholic Teaching and Writing – “Just as one Catholic left the White House … another returned as Donald Trump was re-elected with JD Vance as his vice-president and a cabinet filled with conservatives who wear their faith on their sleeves.” Special US Report: Catholics at the forefront of thought and authorship in 2025 (The Catholic Herald)

Remembering Jane Greer – “She wrote of love, food, wine, sex, cities, art, conversation, and religious devotion in ways that made you wonder how she was able to bear so much reality, so much totality, so much fullness, all the time.” A Tribute to Jane Greer: Poets and Friends Remember Jane Greer (1953-2025) (New Verse Review: A Journal of Lyric and Narrative Poetry)

Essential Truths of Humanity – “The assassination of Charlie Kirk was not just the killing of a brilliant young mind, a husband, and a father; it was an attempt to kill the truth.” Truth Cannot Be Killed: A Tribute to Charlie Kirk (The Catholic Thing)

Trans Activists – “Recent events indicate that the struggle against the dehumanization represented by trans ideology is far from over.” Silencing Dissent, Affirming Delusion (First Things)

The Last Three Nuns – “Three Austrian nuns in their 80s have run away from the retirement home where they were placed and gone back to their former convent.” Defiant nuns flee care home for their abandoned convent in the Alps (BBC)

Duchess of Kent – “Far from a routine telegram, Pope Leo’s condolence drew attention to the qualities that defined the Duchess’s life.” Pope’s message of condolence for Catholic royal speaks volumes to all (Aleteia)

(*The posting of any particular news item or essay is not an endorsement of the content and perspective of said news item or essay.)