Rarely do I find myself looking to modern Hollywood for morality tales, either on screen or in headlines. And yet, every once in a while, a film is released that draws on truths incorruptible by CGI and modern mores. The latest film to do so is The Green Knight , in theaters this summer after years of production delays. It’s no coincidence that the film contains questions about virtue that we might consider to be old-fashioned, considering it is based on an Arthurian legend o

In the three decades since the Revolution of 1989, Poland’s many cultural achievements include mastering the craft of creating the 21st-century historical museum. Examples include the Warsaw Uprising Museum in the national capital; Kraków Under Nazi Occupation 1939-1945 , built on the site of Oskar Schindler’s factory; and The Family Home of John Paul II — Papal Museum , in the late pope’s hometown, Wadowice. Each of these exemplary museums combines a traditional, linear ap

Photo by Timon Studler on Unsplash I’m a real estate agent. So I drive, a lot. Because I spend so much time in the car, I try to spend it...

On the Solemnity of Christ the King in 2013, Pope Francis completed the work of the 2012 Synod of Bishops with the apostolic exhortation,...

http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/711955 Given everything else going on these days, it may seem strange that a 129-year-old encyclical by Pope Leo XIII, founding father of modern Catholic social doctrine, should have become a shuttlecock in the volleys exchanged by conservative American legal theorists and commentators. But there it is. And it’s imperative that the record about Leo XIII’s political theory be clarified before Professor Adrian Vermeule of the Harva

CRACOW. Thanks to the pandemic, it’s been two years since I was last in Cracow, where for three decades I’ve done extensive research and taught great students while forming friendships with many remarkable people. It was wonderful to be back in one of the world’s greatest cities, and soon after I arrived in late June, I took a long walk to see what had changed. The first major difference I noticed was that the plaza in front of the central railway station (named for my late f

In an article first posted at Commonweal and republished on July 7 in La Croix International , Professor John Thiel of Fairfield University, while criticizing the U.S. bishops’ decision to prepare a teaching document on Eucharistic coherence and integrity in the Church, performed the not-inconsiderable feat of striking out four times (swinging). The first whiff: “ In the judgment of the bishops, Biden’s sin seems to be that, as a Catholic politician, he has not taken a publ

NORTHGLENN, CO: Father Joseph Hearty celebrates a traditional Latin Mass at Immaculate Heart of Mary Parish in Northglenn, CO. (Photo by Brandon Young) Let me begin by defining my location in the Liturgy Wars. I am a Novus Ordo man. I don’t agree that the Roman Missal promulgated by Pope Pius V in 1570 entombed the Roman Rite in ecclesiastical amber, such that it forever remains (as one traditionalist friend recently put it) “the most authentic expression of the Roman Chu

Pope Francis’s tendency to use colorful expressions and abrasive adjectives in commenting on ideas, habits, and practices of which he disapproves have puzzled Catholics for over eight years now. Is this how popes talk? From my own study of papal history, I can easily believe that Pope Pius XI had a few choice (even brutal) words to say on occasion. But his verbal smackdowns were always delivered behind closed doors, while many of Pope Francis’s most memorably deprecatory locu

(Photo: Kamil Szumotalski / Unsplash) Well, you all keep me on my toes. Last month, I wrote a column about sin and culpability, using...

Featured image by Ben White on Unsplash Liberation from lockdowns and quarantines ought not be liberation from serious reading, opportunities for which being one of the few boons of the recent past. Here are some suggestions for summer enrichment. Archbishop Charles J. Chaput, OFM Cap., may have retired from the tasks of episcopal governance, but he certainly hasn’t abandoned the fields where the battle for decency is being contested. To some bears of little brain, this mak

Jesus counseled the disciples to enter “through the narrow gate,” since the road that leads to destruction is broad and “those who enter...

WASHINGTON, DC - MAY 06: Subcommittee Chairwoman Rep. Rosa DeLauro (D-CT) speaks during a hearing on COVID-19 Response before the Subcommittee on the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies of the House Appropriations Committee May 6, 2020 on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC. The subcommittee held the hearing with social distancing and enhanced precautions due to the COVID-19 outbreak. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images) At 1 p.m. EDT on J

(Photo: Simeon Muller / Unsplash) I love my hair stylist. She’s a devoted Christian. So, when I see her, we tend to have much deeper...

The concept of the “collegiality” of bishops has been sharply contested since the Second Vatican Council debated it in 1962, 1963, and 1964. That discussion was sufficiently contentious that a personal intervention from Pope Paul VI was required to incorporate the concept of episcopal collegiality within the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church in such a way that the pope’s primacy and universal jurisdiction were safeguarded. The debate about collegiality has continued ever si

Photo by Fred Kearney on Unsplash How would you know if you were being brainwashed? When something plainly false — contrary to common sense and right reason — is so constantly forced on you and you are not allowed to question it, it’s a good indication. This is the nature of ideology: imposing a position without truly establishing it or allowing it to be criticized. We have seen that something clearly opposed to the basics of scientific fact, such as the nature of sex as male

Fifteen months ago, it looked as if Cardinal George Pell might spend his 80th birthday in prison. A malicious trolling expedition by the police department of the State of Victoria in his native Australia had led to the cardinal’s indictment on manifestly absurd charges of “historic sexual abuse.” His first trial ended with a hung jury heavily in favor of acquittal; but because of a court-imposed media blackout on the trial, the public did not know that the defense had shredde

Featured image: St. Joseph, Terror of Demons, Bernadette Carstensen, 2020, consecrationtostjoseph.org. The Year of St. Joseph points us to Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, as the essential model for fathers. Joseph not only manifests genuine masculinity, he also images God’s own fatherhood, as Pope Francis makes clear in his apostolic letter, Patris Corde : “In his relationship to Jesus, Joseph was the earthly shadow of the heavenly Father: he watched over him and protected hi

Featured photo from https://fshoq.com It was a two-week whirlwind that changed my life forever, that first visit of mine to Poland in June 1991. Looking back on it, I’m reminded of something H.L. Mencken wrote of a similarly transformative experience: “It was brain-fagging and back-breaking, but it was grand beyond compare – an adventure of the first chop, a razzle-dazzle superb and elegant, a circus in forty rings.” My first weeks in Poland were all of that, and more. For wh

happy child dreams of traveling and playing with an airplane pilot aviator in outdoor in the summer You don’t have to be a doom and gloomer to see that things are unravelling very quickly in our country. Two metrics are enough to prove the point: a drastic decline in the marriage and birth rates and the recent news that church-going Christians are now a minority within the U.S. Although William Butler Yeats wrote with the First World War and the 1918 flu pandemic in the backg