Should it please the reader to explore the Churchās rich repository of Latin poetry, I shall gladly introduce you. Surely, it is a noble study which you undertake, and I hope to direct your desire to profitably see its fulfillment. Our holy Mother, the Church, possesses an inexhaustible library...
(The Liberals are fast-tracking Bill C-9 through parliament, which will make illegal 'hate speech', vaguely defined, and punishable by two years to life imprisonment. Specifically, the new bill seeks to remove 'religious exemption' from legitimate criticism of the nefarious, or at least controversial, beliefs and practices of certain 'protected...
As of this writing, I have 53 days until I am confirmed into the Catholic Church. An astonishing thing for many reasons. Mainly because I never thought there would be a day I would become a āhereticā as I formerly believed ā but there are much more nuanced reasons...
We would remiss on this March 10th if we didnāt mention the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, a group of elite Roman legionaries ā called the Fulminata (āthe ligthningā regiment) - who en masse professed Christianity, and were condemned to death. This was under the persecution of Emperor Licinius in...
Bishop Marian Eleganti, auxiliary emeritus of Chur, Switzerland, through which I happened to pilgrimage last summer, sums up the irregular situation of the SSPX. His thoughts bear pondering:
Firstly, acting with full autonomy without papal mandate or confirmed mission; secondly, operating with bishops not in union with the Pope and...
John Ogilvie was born in 1579, just as the Protestant 'reformation' was taking hold in Britain, including his native land of Scotland, led by the fiery apostate priest John Knox. Catholicism would soon be all-but wiped out in dear Alba, signified by the death of our saint.
Although raised in...
Thereās so much talk in the news right now about how we can unite as a region at a time when weāre more divided than ever. Often, we turn to policy to answer this question. But itās so much bigger than that.
And while the problem is big, I believe...
Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, a Cistercian Trappist, converted to Catholicism in 2002, and, after years of study at Cambridge and Rome - he is an expert in Syriac - was ordained to the priesthood on the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel in 2011, and a decade later,...
We should not be surprised that the saints speak to us through the ages. How they responded in their own era with its own troubles and crises offers us an example for how to act in our own. As well, they intercede for us, that we, like them, may...
āGive me a drinkā (Jn. 4:7).
The conversation of Our Lord and the Samaritan woman revolves around the gift of water. This request is presented to us to contemplate on this third Sunday in Lent; and it is a request that we will hear again during the Commemoration of the...
Saints are by definition āextremeā, for they live a liminal life, on the very threshold of eternity, seeing past the veil of this world. Hence, they act as though all that mattered were the next life, which, in the end, is true. Contrary to John Lennon, they more than...
For our musical offering on this Third Sunday of Lent, here are a few renditions - amongst many - of the perduring Stabat Mater, the 13th century poem on the sorrows of Mary 'standing by the Cross', attributed to the Franciscan Jacopone de Todi, or, some say, Saint Bonaventure...
Remember to turn your clocks forward for Daylight Savings Time this evening, March 8th, a 2 am to be precise. Or, at least, since most of us keep time using digital devices, which automatically adjust, one should psychologically prepare for one hour less sleep.
One would hope that this measure...
Today marks the memorial of the early martyrs Perpetua and Felicity, put to death likely in the year 203, under the reign of Septimius Severus, an emperor who seems on the whole to have been well-disposed to Christians. But the true religion was still one hundred and ten years...
Nicole Boellet (1381 - 1447) was a miraculous birth. Her childless, elderly parents, Robert and Marguerite, prayed to Saint Nicholas - yes, 'Santa Claus' - that they might conceive, and lo and behold, as he often does, old Saint Nick came through with his gift. Marguerite conceived at the...
Fulton Sheenās beatification continues. And Iād like to draw attention to something he once wrote:, āThe greatest love story of all time is contained in a tiny white Host,ā and that sentence alone has more theological density than most religious commentary produced in a year. Consequently, if we are...
Here is a disconcerting exchange between Pope Leo XIV and an EWTN reporter, when the Pope is asked to comment on the case of Jimmy Lai.
As readers may know, Jimmy Lai is a Catholic entrepreneur and businessman, who persevered through years of threats to stand up for basic human...
'Epic Fury',Ā the attack on Iran by the United States, may last for some weeks yet, according to President Trump. Whether this is justified and proportionate is open to some doubt. The reader may peruse also some of my thoughts on just war theory, and make up their minds...
(Today's saint, one of the patrons of Poland, and of Lithuania, whose very name means 'bearer of peace', makes a very a propos intercessor for our troubled world. May peace prevail.) Ed.
Saint Casimir died young - as the good often do - entering eternity on this day, March 4th,...
Mother Katharine Mary Drexel (1858 - 1955) is a fitting intercessor for the racial tensions afflicting her native United States. For one thing, she is the first natural born canonized American citizen (Elizabeth Ann Seton was born in 1774, in what would become that nation a few years later)....
Are old people wise? Have they learned anything from experience? Or are they all curmudgeons, continually grumbling about the young generation and contrasting it unfavourably with the way things used to be? Well, as an old man myself, I may observe that it is possible to be both wise...
