Silvio Cuéllar The air is now filled with Christmas music, special offers and sales. This materialistic culture invites us to buy and buy the latest, newest thing. However, this Advent season can also be a time to share our time, talents, and treasure with others. Helping the poor In his recent homily for the World…
Fr Patrick Briscoe OP “Human beings possess a great and readily observable weakness for which they need much support and comfort,” says the Italian priest philosopher Luigi Giussani. “They have an endemic fear engendered by a temptation to reduce the total image of their lives to what can be visibly and materially experienced.” How we…
Learning how to thank God is not only spiritually fruitful but necessary, writes Bill Dodds Most of us were toddlers when we learned to say “please” and “thank you”. We were a little older when we fell into the habit of asking, begging, nagging, whining, “Please, please, please, please, ple-e-e-e-e-e-ease!” Older still when we began…
Deacon Dominic Cerrato In recent years, the Catholic Church in Germany embarked on an ambitious and controversial project known as the “German Synodal Way”. This initiative, which sought to address various issues within the Church, including governance, the role of women, and the Church’s teaching on sexuality, has stirred significant attention and debate within…
Fr Patrick Briscoe OP It felt like there was a seismic shift in Church teaching concerning transgenderism in recent weeks. And that’s because so many headlines got the story wrong. The New York Times, for example, reported: “Pope Francis, who has made reaching out to LGBTQ Catholics a hallmark of his papacy, has made clear…
In the battle against clutter both physical and spiritual, the path to holiness lies, writes Emily Stimpson Chapman Religious have it easy – at least in some regards. Consider, for example, their vow of poverty. Religious brothers, sisters and priests pledge a sacred oath that shields them from basements overrun by toys, cupboards overflowing…
Elizabeth Scalia In chapter 31 of her autobiography, the 16th Century Carmelite St Teresa of Avila – one of four female doctors of the Church, including her spiritual daughter, St Thérèse of Lisieux – urges us toward frequent use of one particular, very common and (usually) widely available sacramental. “From long experience I have…
Russell Shaw Levelling hierarchical distinctions in the Church without removing them entirely has emerged as a principal objective of Pope Francis’ Synod on Synodality. That is perhaps the chief conclusion to be drawn from the first session of the synod, which took place October 4-29 at the Vatican. The second, and presumably last, session will…
Christians should be striving for the same ‘unity of life’ Christ embodied, writes Russell Shaw The state or condition called “unity of life” isn’t a virtue in itself. It can even serve bad ends. So what’s it doing as the subject of an article on virtues for people trying to lead good lives out in…
Fr Patrick Briscoe OP The year was 1938, and the French Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain delivered a powerful radio address against antisemitism, as relevant today as it was then. His words, spoken in the shadow of the Holocaust and the rise of Nazi Germany, were a voice of reason and compassion springing from the heart…