The Dispatch
Books for Christmas – 2020
How bad a year has it been? Let me not count the ways. Good books can hearten us in 2021 and beyond, though. Herewith, then, [...]
The logic and danger of Pope Francis’s approach to selecting cardinals
Analysis
On Saturday, Pope Francis created thirteen cardinals in a consistory, nine of whom will be eligible to vote in a future conclave. Of these, two are officials of the Roman curia while just two others [...]
The story of the rise, triumph, and nightmare of the modern self
Books
Anyone wondering if man is capable of reason need look no further than the self-evident fact that he desires to understand. Indeed, he is frustrated when understanding eludes him. In those moments, he experiences what [...]
Essay
What kind of relationship with God?
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
Communion on the floor and the trinity of disorientation
In the fourth century, St. Cyril of Jerusalem asked of those receiving Communion: Tell me, if anyone gave you grains of gold, would you not hold them with all care taking heed lest you should [...]
Essay
Singing through Advent: Part One
“Beauty will save the world,” says’s Dostoevsky’s Idiot. We need beauty. The preeminent theologian of beauty, we might say, was Hans Urs Von Balthasar, who rhapsodized on this notion thus: Beauty is the last thing which [...]
Books
New history of Catholics in the United States full of scholarship, insight, humor
Dr. Kevin Starr (1940-2017) was an amazingly prolific, talented, and innovative historian. His books on California, especially the five-volume California Dream series, which he completed while he was California State Historian, remain models of true [...]
Features
Christ Child at the capitol
Nearly two-thirds of state capitol buildings in the United States will display a Nativity crèche this Christmas season, a nearly 50 percent increase in just two years under a partnership between American Nativity Scene and [...]
Essay
What kind of relationship? On the “one”, the “many”, and things in the world
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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Why is public life collapsing? Why the falsehoods? The slanders? The contempt and hatred for fellow citizens? The open sympathy for political violence? The indifference to truth, even among those who claim to be its [...] -
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“Pope Blesses Gay Weddings”, declares the headline in Metro, one of Britain’s largest newspapers, over the subhead, “Homosexuals Are Children of God … They Have a Right To Civil Unions”. True? Accurate? Close enough? Not [...] -
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Carl E. Olson:
Correct. It should have been "57%". Editorial apologies for not catching the error.
David Cheney:
The paragraph "At this point, Pope Francis has nominated more than half of the men who will choose his successor:…
Lynda:
Bottom line, this strong holy man is just plain not that stupid. This plan was put together by a stupid…
