Irony may be described in one way as something happening, not that you don’t want to happen, but that you don’t expect to happen, that goes against what should be the case. That is why it is ironic that right in the middle of the just completed Year of Mercy, decreed by Pope Francis in […]
President Trump, to his credit, yesterday eased the restrictions of the Johnson Amendment, named after Lyndon B. Johnson, who in his time as Senator in 1954 proposed that non-profit organizations, including universities and churches, should be restricted from speaking on politics. In particular, they would not be permitted to ‘oppose’ a political candidate. Johnson’s […]
Today’s feast is that of the Apostles, Saints Philip and James. Philip, the one who asked Christ that if they could only ‘see the Father’ they ‘would be satisfied’. Of course, following upon my comments on Athanasius yesterday, Christ was already way ahead of the Arians, replying to Philip patiently: ‘He who has seen Me […]
Yesterday, May 1st, on the memorial of Saint Joseph the Worker, Our Lady Seat of Wisdom received official recognition from the government of Ontario to grant degrees, specifically the ‘Bachelor of Catholic Studies’. Providentially, the letter arrived three years to the very day that the application was first submitted, on the day dedicated to the […]
There are times when one word, even one letter, can make all the difference. The scene is June of 325, in the basilica of the imperial city of Nicaea (now in northwestern Turkey) where an ecumenical council has been called by the Emperor Constantine to deal with a number of issues in the Church, not […]
Saint Joseph has two ‘feast’ days in the universal Church, neither of which is technically a ‘feast’. The first, on March 19th, is his principal day, celebrated as a full solemnity, usually in Lent (unless bumped into Easter by its falling during Holy Week). Then there is today’s ‘optional memorial’ of Saint Joseph the […]
Feel free to peruse an article I just finished on Shuasku Endo’s controversial novel Silence, pusblished in 1966, and now soon to be released as a major Hollywood production. The book follows a Jesuit missionary, Sebastian Rodrigues, forced to choose between apostasy, and saving a whole group of people being tortured. The tale analyzes the […]
A very joyous, merry and grace-filled Christmas to all faithful readers! Awake, awake, fling off the night! For God has sent His glorious light! And we who live in Christ’s new day, Must deeds of darkness put away.
As a number of pundits have predicted, there was a terrorist attack in Berlin, at a Christmas festival, with a multi-ton ‘lorry’ smashing full speed into a stall selling mulled wine. Eleven people were killed by the truck, with scores wounded, some severely, and a twelfth victim, the operator of the truck, killed by an […]
From the extinction of marriage files: Italy is considering officially removing the ‘fidelity’ aspect in the promises of legal marriage; no longer will one have to be faithful to one’s wife or husband (or, I suppose now, any significant ‘partner’), and adultery, in its various manifestations, will no longer be grounds for divorce. The Italian […]