One of the worst of contemporary hymn-texts bids us to “Sing a new Church into being.” Not only does this injunction debase the noble hymn-tune “Nettleton;” it teaches a pseudo-Christian hubris that is contrary to […]
Readings: Ex 19:2-6a Ps 100:1-2, 3, 5 Rom 5:6-11 Mt 9:36—10:8 One of the descriptions of the Church emphasized in the documents of the Second Vatican Council is “the people of God.” The Dogmatic Constitution […]
Pope Francis’s image of the Church as a “field hospital,” tending the wounded on today’s social and cultural battlefields, resonates with Catholics across the globe. The image evokes a Church living the Lord’s command in […]
It has become fairly common in these post-Covid times to distinguish very carefully between science and scientism, or between science and The ScienceTM. The distinction generally goes something like this: Science is a method for […]
A few months ago, I interviewed the patristics scholar, Dr. Lewis Ayres. Dr. Ayres is understandably very favorably disposed towards the school of modern theology that has come to be known as “ressourcement” theology. However, […]
The Catholic Church, along with every major Protestant denomination, has witnessed a precipitous decline in Church attendance. This slide, set off during the 1960s, has accelerated with the rapid rise of the “nones,” Americans claiming no religious affiliation. We could wonder, has the bottom fallen out with this […]
In the first part of my conversation with Fr. Robert Spitzer, SJ, we spoke about spiritual warfare, fighting Satan, and escaping the darkness of evil. These and many related topics are addressed in his trilogy […]
In Catholic theology, the Church is not to be identified with a mere aggregate of her members, not even those members who happen to hold ecclesiastical office at any particular moment. She is an institution […]
“The end is near!” Our mental picture of a typical street evangelist often consists of a person standing in some public square and holding a sign with these words written on it. In society’s rush […]
Both polar extremes in the Church today seem locked into the same meta-narrative of Catholicism and modernity, in which the paramount question is, “How much […]
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