People from across the U.S. gathered outside the Supreme Court for the oral arguments of the Dobbs vs Jackson abortion case. (Photo by Katie Yoder/CNA) I first met Erika Bachiochi — then Erika Schubert — in July 1998, when she was my student in the Tertio Millennio Seminar on the Free Society in Cracow. She had graduated from Middlebury College two years before and was doing a master’s program in theology at Boston College, which she completed in 1999. Erika received her law

Nativity, Fra Angelico, ca. 1395-1455. The world does not think like God. If we were to plan how to stage the most important moment in history, it might involve a great military victory or a stunning natural occurrence that would catch everyone’s attention. How did God choreograph the moment that fundamentally changed human life? With a babe, lying hidden a manger, surrounded by barn animals. This miraculous birth, which went unnoticed by most of the world, signaled a new beg

ROME. A massive, 16-volume Lives of the Saints , first published between 1872 and 1877, informs me that, here in the Eternal City, the feast of Christmas first became a celebration distinct from the ancient feast of the Epiphany in the mid-fourth century — and that St. John Chrysostom, one of the four doctors of the Church who support the cathedra in Bernini’s bronze masterpiece, The Altar of the Chair , in the Vatican Basilica, “used his utmost endeavor” to promote the cele

In the Garden of Eden, Satan convinced Adam and Eve to doubt God’s trustworthiness. He enticed them by telling them a lie, that they...

When I began working with some regularity in Rome 30 years ago, my elders and betters taught me that no one paid much attention to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano . The exception to that rule was the daily section with the charming title Nostre Informazioni (“Our Informations”), in which papal audiences, episcopal appointments, and other tidbits of interest to those obsessed with Who’s Up and Who’s Down are recorded. (The most famous of these nuggets was the brie

Pope Benedict XVI. Photo by Thomas Serafin/CNA This February will mark nine years since the historic renunciation of Pope Benedict XVI. Joseph Ratzinger would have gone down in history as a great theologian without his rise to the chair of St. Peter, although through his papal ministry he became a teacher of the world. The power of Benedict’s writing speaks for itself, though his life also witnesses to the power of truth and service. Peter Seewald, who edited many interview b

Photo by Zhang Kaiyv on Unsplash In July 2016, as we were sitting on the fantail of the Swiss sidewheeler Rhone while she chugged across Lake Geneva, my host pointed out the city of Lausanne, where a massive, glass-bedecked curvilinear building was shimmering in the summer sun. “Isn’t that the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee?” I asked. When my friend replied in the affirmative, I said, “I thought I smelled it.” That rank odor — the stench of greed overpowe

Photo by Keith Allison on Wikicommons via Flickr So Aaron Rodgers is in trouble. Back in August, he was asked by reporters if he had...

Photo by Mel Poole on Unsplash Some suggestions for Christmas giving, in the form of books that amuse, inspire, educate or all-of-the-above: Prison Journal, Volume 3 – The High Court Frees an Innocent Man , by Cardinal George Pell (Ignatius Press). The vindication of Cardinal George Pell by Australia’s High Court in April 2020 was an unalloyed joy amidst Plague Time. With this third volume, Ignatius Press completes the publication of Cardinal Pell’s remarkable prison diary, w

Photo by William Warby on Unsplash Without God, our sense of human dignity quickly erodes. Although we tend to equate civilization with an increase in wealth and comfort, its real health stems from genuine human flourishing, which arises much more from the interior life. The 20th century was a time of great material progress, yet it also witnessed a terrible interior collapse. Perhaps it was precisely this material progress that led to such a large scale and systematic destru

Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash This Thanksgiving, no one living in the United States should be anything but profoundly grateful for the privilege of living in this country. No one. That’s not necessarily a popular sentiment today. The country is amidst one of its periodic spasms of self-flagellation, amplified by political hucksters and charlatans of right and left (nothing new) and by social media demagogy (something new and ominous). And no doubt there’s a lot to ponder,

When I first learned that Pope Francis wanted to convoke a Synod on Synodality, I wondered how that would fit with what God the Father...

Photo courtesy of Father Sam Morehead via CNA The following is a brief excerpt from an op-ed penned by Archbishop Samuel J. Aquila and...

Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash Among those in the ultramundane pantheon of communist mega-monsters, Lev Davidovich Bronstein (better known by his Bolshevik nom de guerre, Leon Trotsky) is a more interesting human personality than Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (Joseph Stalin or, in the Roosevelt-Churchill correspondence, “Uncle Joe”). Trotsky actually had ideas, however misshapen, and something vaguely resembling a conscience. Stalin was pathologically power-mad and had

As we wrestle with how to hand on the faith, knowing that we are facing a general breakdown in its transmission, we can point to some things that clearly work. First and foremost, we know that parents have “paramount” and unparalleled importance in the faith lives of their children, one that “trumps every other influence,” as the sociologist Christian Smith demonstrates in his latest book, written with Amy Adamczyk, Handing Down the Faith: How Parents Pass Their Religion to t

As the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops prepares to meet in Baltimore, misconceptions about a proposed conference statement on the Eucharistic vitality and integrity of the Church in America abound. The confusions originating from online Catholic sources and social media have been exacerbated by a mainstream press that has consistently misrepresented what the bishops are doing. I hope the following clarifications are useful. The proposed statement is not primarily

Close-up of a mausoleum at Mount Olivet Catholic Cemetery in Wheat Ridge. (Photo: Denver Catholic file photo) I’ve been telling you that...

By any worldly measure, 1946 was an annus horribilis in Poland. With the exceptions of Cracow and Lodz, every Polish city lay in ruins. The homeless and displaced numbered in the millions. As a ruthless Stalinism tightened its grip on a country that had been doubly decimated during World War II, losing 20% of its pre-war population, heroes of the anti-Nazi resistance were executed on spurious charges by Poland’s new communist overlords. Yet in the oft-puzzling ways of Provid

We are born to die. This inevitable fact could lead to fatalism, although, more often, we simply fall into denial. We avoid thinking about death and stigmatize it as the greatest evil. If this world is all we have, then death would be the greatest evil, although life itself would become futile, a temporary illusion — grasping pleasure as it slips through our fingers. For a Christian, however, we are born to live. The inevitability of death remains even though it loses its ter

The most moving feature of the Flight 93 National Memorial in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, are the pictures of the 40 brave men and women...