“So, whoever is in Christ is a new creation: the old things have passed away; behold, new things have come.” (2 Cor. 5:17) The Church...

In the first chapter of Profiles in Courage , John F. Kennedy quoted an exasperated Congressman, John Steven McGroarty, who wrote an...

A frightening trend emerged when I was working in Catholic school administration. The acceleration of problems related to sexuality for...

To vary Oscar Wilde, the Church’s liturgical life often imitates art by being strikingly appropriate to a particular moment. That was...

Photo by Amor Santo via Cathopic Have you ever known someone who was facing a truly huge loss, and struggled with what to say to them? It...

March 13 ought to have been a happy day in Rome. But the mood in and around Vatican City before, during and after the 10th anniversary of...

The Blessing of the Wheat in the Artois by Jules Breton, c. 1857. (Photo: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons) We often repeat that the...

In its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church ( Lumen Gentium ), the Second Vatican Council firmly applied the brakes to “ultramontanism” —...

The Healing of the Cripple of Bethesda by Pieter Aertsen, c. 1575. (Photo: Public Domain/Wikimedia Commons) Pope Francis’s image of the...

“He was hungry.” Luke tells us of Jesus’ struggle with the devil in the desert, during which he fasted for 40 days. At the end of it, as...

When they were working together some years ago at the Ukrainian Catholic University — the only Catholic institution of higher learning in...

St. Paul VI says the Mass versus populum at All Saints Parish (Rome) on March 7, 1965. By Father Felix P. Medina-Algaba Pastor of Queen...

A procession of cardinals enters St. Peter's in Rome, opening the Second Vatican Council. Original painting by Franklin McMahon, c. 1962....

Leo G. Bonacci passed away on January 21, 2023. He was two months shy of his 100th birthday. There is so much I could say about my...

“All of man’s misfortune comes from one thing, which is not knowing how to sit quietly in a room.” Blaise Pascal, who offers this...

The corner of Connecticut Avenue and M Street in downtown Washington is occasionally patrolled by young men and women seeking signatures...

Back in the day, kiddie-Catholics learned that the Church had four “marks:” the Church is one, holy, catholic (as in “universal”), and...

Until the 1960s, Catholics worshipped ad orientem , with priest and congregation facing the East during Mass. Originally Christians...

On the night of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s funeral, Cardinal George Pell hosted a dinner in his apartment for a group of like-minded...

On Tuesday, January 3, when Cardinal George Pell and I went to pay our respects to Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, lying in state in St....