Brett Salkeld I don’t own a smartphone. Well, that’s not quite true. I have an old phone that could technically access the internet, but I have never set it up to do so. I use it to call my wife when I am traveling and, very occasionally, to text. I have taken a small handful…
David Mills An internationally best-selling novelist who might have won the Nobel Prize in literature, a patriotic Pole, a devout Catholic, Zofia Kossak-Szczucka was also an ardent anti-semite. And she is a model for us – not despite her bigotry but because of it. “Our feeling toward the Jews has not changed,” she wrote in…
Mother Teresa’s imitation of Christ provides an example for us all, writes Amy Welborn No modern figure has been more revered as a saint in life, so the rapid progress of Mother Teresa’s cause from her death to her canonisation within two decades came as no surprise. From the day Mother Teresa rode on a…
Scott Richert A decade or more ago, I went to Confession one Saturday afternoon. Like many other priests, the particular confessor who heard my confession that day frequently defaulted to three Hail Marys as the standard penance that he assigned. But not that day. Whether led by something I had confessed or by his own…
Jaymie Stuart Wolfe How we live our lives is substantially different from how our parents and grandparents lived theirs. We no longer need to wait a whole week for the next episode of a favourite TV show; we can watch all five seasons in a single binge. We don’t have to buy tickets or drive…
St Pope John Paul II’s insightful encyclical has yet to be studied and implemented as it should be, writes Carl Olson August 6 marked the 30th anniversary of St John Paul II’s encyclical Veritatis Splendor (“The Splendour of Truth”). It is the first and only papal encyclical focused on moral theology. Its continued importance cannot…
Fr Patrick Briscoe OP As I stood at the bars of the chilling confines of St Maximilian Kolbe‘s cell within the walls of Auschwitz, I couldn’t help but be overwhelmed by an inexplicable mix of emotions. The gravity of the place and the memory it held were inescapable. And yet, at the same time, a…
Daria Sockey During his pontificate, Pope Benedict XVI said that there was one prayer that he wished all Catholics would learn to use. Can you guess what it is? Guess again – not the rosary. Nope. Not the Divine Mercy Chaplet either. Here are some hints. This prayer is nearly as old as the…
August 15 is the great Marian feast that honours the whole human person, writes Dr Sarah Jane Boss For many centuries, the Feast of the Assumption was celebrated in the Church without any formal definition of the doctrine. In most places, it was the principal feast of the Blessed Virgin Mary and it is…
David Mills Some years ago, a priest sent me occasional criticism of something I’d written. He tended to pick at small points. We’d had dinner a couple of times and were friendly, and I eventually responded that I’d find it easier to hear his criticism if he’d ever offered any comment but criticism. I…