People who don’t like the pro-life movement often say it can’t really be concerned about the baby. Its concern stops at birth, they say, so it must have a hidden agenda, like oppressing women—especially poor […]
Hell is often depicted in Christian art as a place of unspeakable physical torments where the unrepentant sinner receives his or her just punishments for various moral perfidies and offenses against the law of God. […]
In my previous essay I criticized the new emphasis on synodality as an essentially modern enterprise of bureaucratic legerdemain. I noted that while I support the concept of a more synodal Church, I am suspicious […]
In my previous essay, I examined the fate of Irish wake practices in light of the Tridentine Church’s efforts to develop a more modern, properly catechized and morally disciplined Catholic laity. Despite the general success […]
Today’s electronic communications have fragmented our world into myriad images and soundbites that can be reassembled to make anything seem real. That has made it a paradise for con-men, propagandists, and insane people. If you’re […]
I am not opposed to a more “synodal” Church. In fact, I would welcome any move away from the cult of the modern hyper-papacy that views the pontiff as an Oracle of Delphi on the […]
Michael Pakaluk, in his February 2022 essay “Is Vatican II ‘Spent’?”, says that what we now need, precisely in order to advance the aims of Vatican II, is a Vatican III: We need a new […]
I. As a general principle, an honest man will want know what something is, or is said to be, before he decides whether he thinks it is true or that he must do anything about […]
Last month I complained about formal expertise. Although often very useful, I said, it can be blind to obvious realities. The problem is that it wants its authority to seem indisputably objective and reliable. For […]
Michael Pakaluk, in a recent essay at “The Catholic Thing”, makes the claim that Vatican II, though containing many important teachings, has done all that it can do and will do, and is therefore, “spent.” […]
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