Articles by Thomas M. Doran

I recently read a meditation by a 9th-10th-century saint. Doing so, it came to me how different this saint’s thoughts and perspectives were from today’s popular notion of the “dark ages” from the fall of […]

I see a lot of posts and lawn signs and hear a lot of public voices proclaiming “Science is Real”. But what is science telling us versus what we’d prefer to believe, or have been […]

Aren’t we hearing a lot of voices, secular and from other believers? I am, and many of these voices are angry or fearful or despondent. I have to remind myself that the Church and many […]

Public debate in America has been compared to silos where we, and those who think like us, are good, smart, and right, and those who disagree with us are bad, stupid, and wrong. We may […]

“How could this happen?” we ask ourselves, and anyone else who’s willing to listen. I’ve been reading Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ at two pages a day for many months. He has the tedious habit […]

Some writers have a talent for composing stories or poems that contrast a yearning for truth and meaning with glimpses of the underbelly of human nature, often grim and raw stories that can give one […]

This is a good time to dive into a worthy story: Crime and Punishment (Dostoevsky), The Lord of the Rings (Tolkien), Death Comes for The Archbishop (Cather), The Quiet American (Greene), The Chronicles of Narnia […]

If you ask people to describe Disney in a few words, you might hear: creative, kitschy, attention to detail, stimulating, commercial, innovative, but it’s unlikely you’ll hear the word transcendent—beyond or above the range of […]

Survey after survey of religion in America demonstrates that atheism, agnosticism, and the “nones” are steadily increasing, with many of the “nones” once identifying as Catholics and other Christians. While some of these profess a […]