Dr. Randall B. Smith – Catholic World Report

Articles by Dr. Randall B. Smith

About Dr. Randall B. Smith

Dr. Randall B. Smith is a full professor of Theology at a Catholic, liberal arts university. His book Reading the Sermons of Aquinas: A Beginner’s Guide is available from Emmaus Press. And his next book, Aquinas, Bonaventure, and the Scholastic Culture at Paris: Preaching, Prologues, and Biblical Commentary will be available from Cambridge University Press in the fall.

Wrestling with a Moral Dilemma

June 1, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 6

You are a soldier in Vietnam. You have met and fallen in love with a Vietnamese woman. The two of you have a child, although you are not legally married. Due to political reasons beyond […]

Distance education: It’s a long way from real education

May 12, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 19

Some people ask me what I think about teaching online. I ask them how they like watching Mass online. “Really, that bad?” they reply. “No, actually, if you can believe it,” I tell them, “it […]

Overwhelmed by quarantine possibilities

April 20, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 3

Each day brings with it, along with the bad news, ever more suggestions for what we can do with all our free time during the quarantine. I’m not sure where all the free time is […]

Our Titanic moment and the puncturing of illusions

April 15, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 12

“Man has nature whacked.” C. S. Lewis relates this comment made to a friend of his at the beginning of the final chapter in his book The Abolition of Man. The comment was ironic, reports […]

The Relevance of the Resurrection

April 12, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 17

Christ’s glorified body tells us that the promise of eternal life which Jesus’s death and resurrection has opened up for us results not in obliteration […]

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

Good Friday, Death, and Christian Life

April 10, 2020 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 […]

“The thin polish of easy morality” and our present crisis

March 26, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 11

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 […]

Christian Hope and Covid-19

March 14, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 9

I have no wish to overdramatize our current challenges, but since many people are reading multiple articles daily about the spread of the Covid-19 pandemic, perhaps this would be a good time to recall C. […]

Dreams of Dueling Synods

March 10, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 7

I see that the German bishops have embarked on their “binding synodal process.” Who, other than a German, could get excited by a “binding process”? This is like getting all aflutter when the boss announces […]

Words Meaning Nothing: On the Empty Epidemic of “Management Speak”

February 8, 2020 Dr. Randall B. Smith 19

“… they speak great swelling words of emptiness …” — 2 Peter 2:18 “Words have no power to impress the mind without the exquisite horror of their reality.” — Edgar Allan Poe It used to […]