Opinion

Archbishop Michael J. Curley of Baltimore, who confirmed my father, was a pugnacious Irishman with a taste for shocking people via undiplomatic language. In a conversation with the great historian John Tracy Ellis, Curley, who […]

The Apostles’ Creed teaches that the Church, as the Body of Christ, is one, holy, catholic, and apostolic. The Church herself—understood as the Mystical Body and safeguarded by the Holy Spirit—cannot be the object of […]

Through recent comments from Pope Leo XIV and a statement by the United States Bishops at the end of the annual meeting of the USCCB, immigration is again in the headlines of both secular and […]

My sophomore English teacher taught an invaluable writing lesson that has stayed with me: “Show, don’t tell.” In explicating texts, we should make our point directly without saying we are doing so. Rather than begin […]

One of the more noteworthy episodes during the late nineteenth-century tenure of Pope Leo XIII was the pope’s response to the so-called “Americanist” controversy in the United States. Leo XIII wrote two encyclicals addressing issues […]

Leo XIII became pope in February 1878. Within 18 months of his election, he issued his encyclical Aeterni Patris, recommending St. Thomas Aquinas as bearing “golden wisdom” and promoting the renewal of Thomistic studies as […]

Last week, my inbox was inundated with people writing about the recent concert in St. Peter’s Square. For those who missed it, the “Grace for the World” concert was held on September 13th, and it […]

On September 30, Senator Dick Durbin announced that he is declining a “Lifetime Achievement Award” offered to him by the Archdiocese of Chicago. The heated controversy surrounding the episode illustrates two related crises in American […]