The Dispatch
Palm Sunday and four direct, confounding questions
Readings: • Mt. 21:1-11 • Isa. 50:4-7 • Psa. 22:8-9, 17-18, 19-20, 23-24 • Phil. 2:6-11 • Mt. 26:14-27:66 When hearing a passage as dramatic [...]
The older form of the Roman rite is alive and well
Analysis
Ending an after-dinner speech in an Oxford College refectory at a week-long training conference for priests wishing to learn how to celebrate the usus antiquior (the more ancient use) of the Roman rite in the [...]
Abigail Adams in a Time of Pestilence
Essay
“Did I not tell you that if you believe you will see the glory of God?” — John 11:40 “I set myself down to write with a Heart depressed with the Melancholy Scenes around me,” [...]
Opinion
The shepherds we need—or the shepherds I want?
Our bishops hold offices of great authority, their words, actions, and decisions are public, and they are human—the very worst thing you can be if you want to avoid criticism. And many bishops, like many [...]
Essay
Recourse made once again to Mary, Salus Populi Romani
Perhaps no man ascended to the throne of St. Peter in more difficult circumstances than Pope Gregory, who is most justly called “the Great”. When he became pope in 590, the city of Rome lay [...]
Essay
Staring death in the face
Readings: • Ez. 37:12-14 • Psa. 130:1-2, 3-4, 5-6, 7-8 • Rom. 8:8-11 • Jn. 11:1-45 “Lazarus, come out!” With that simple, dramatic command, the Incarnate Word spoke words that demonstrated his power over death. It concludes one [...]
Essay
“The thin polish of easy morality” and our present crisis
I read an article on Albert Camus’ book The Plague recently. It said, in part: Like his hero, Camus gives us hope. He believes that the deadly crisis will encourage solidarity and bring out the [...]
Books
A Time to Read Nicolas Diat’s “A Time to Die”
In the age of COVID-19, death has become a daily subject around the dinner table, in the grocery store, and at a social distance even at the gas station. We are now constantly reminded in [...]
Features
25 years after Evangelium Vitae, we still need a “new feminism”
Perhaps at no point in human history has the urgency of the proclamation of the “Gospel of Life”—the name given to the 11th of Pope Saint John Paul II’s 14 encyclicals—been so apparent as today. [...]
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People have become extraordinarily anxious. The situation is most extreme among political progressives. Surveys show that political and social attitudes among conservatives have mostly been rather stable in recent years, but among liberals they have been [...] -
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The highly anticipated and now much discussed post-synodal apostolic exhortation Querida Amazonia struck me as mostly workmanlike. That’s not to dismiss the importance of the text, or to overlook significant passages. Nor is it to [...] -
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SATVRDAY EDITION – Big Pulpit:
[…] to St. Joseph Author: Why We Need Saint’s Witness Now More Than Ever – B. Fraga ‘Freed because of…
Tony W:
Thank you for writing this excellent piece.
Leslie:
By "political forces" that were "more conservative and more party line" he was referring to the Vatican.
