Weekly Insight
Why and Wherefore War?
'Epic Fury', 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...
Saint Casimir the Chaste, Patron of Poland
(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...
Katharine Drexel: The First All American Saint
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...
Second Sunday of Lent, and Seeing Beyond Our Eyes
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...
Saint David, of Wales
A brief note on Saint David, the sixth-century monastic bishop, now patron, of Wales, born at an unknown date, but who likely died on this day, March 1st, in 589, based on what evidence...
Allegri’s Miserere and Mozart’s Memory
As we begin the Lenten pilgrimage on this second Sunday, a fitting help to our devotion is Allegri's Miserere, his unsurpassed musical setting of Psalm 51, recited in Lauds (Morning Prayer) every Friday. Composed...
Will the World Return to Religion? A Public Debate in New York City between Clarence Darrow and G.K. Chesterton
(This is a longer read from long-time contributor Carl Sundell, which may well be his swan song, even if we hope for more from his delightful pen. Perhaps peruse this in sections, for there...
Benedict’s Resignation
Hard to believe that it was a fateful thirteen years ago on this February 28th that Pope Benedict XVI resigned the papacy, the first Pope to do so since Gregory XII, who voluntarily stepped...
The Perils of Sedevacantism
(With John-Henry Westen of LifeSite raising the question of sedevacantism, urging a petition for the cardinals to question the validity of Francis' and Leo's papacies, here is a re-post of something I wrote earlier,...
Saint Gregory Narek, Mystic, Monk and Doctor
The Armenian monk Gregory Narek (Grigor Narekatsi), whose life spanned the latter half of the 11th century (ca. 950 - 1003), was enrolled amongst the elite Doctors of the Church by Pope Francis in...
Saint Gabriel Possenti – God, Prayer…and Guns?
Gabriel of the Seven Sorrows, who died on this day in 1862, may be seen as a kind of male Saint Thérèse, but, as in all things male and female, they were also quite...
One Stop Death Shop
Well, it's certainly convenient, as well as profitable: A funeral home in Vancouver that will kill you, then cremate your body - or, if you insist, they'll bury you in one of those 'ecologically...
How Byzantine Spirituality Speaks to the Contemporary West
Western culture is marked by a strange double-bind. It is interminably fast-moving yet restless, hyper-connected and yet crushingly lonely, materially comfortable and at the same time spiritually exhausted. The endless abundance of our technological...
SSPX Plans to Cross the Rubicon…but the Wrong Way: Alea Iacta Est?
Well, perhaps it was inevitable, given the intractability: The SSPX has decided to go ahead with the ordination of bishops on July 1st, 2026, which is just about 38 years to the day after the...
Saint Polycarp: Boldness and Baked Bread
The Church has had martyrs since her earliest days, and will have them unto the end of time. A number of prophecies attest that the number of martyrs towards the end will exceed those...
