The Holy Father and President Donald Trump finally had a face to face meeting yesterday which, as accounts have it, began rather awkwardly, but soon warmed up (although the Pope still looks rather stony-faced in the group shot afterward) as the two discussed various topics for half an hour, snippets of which were revealed, striving […]
ISIS has struck again, in the heart of Britain, as a suicide bomber detonated a ‘sophisticated’ device as young concertgoers were leaving an ‘Ariana Grande’ concert in Manchester. At least 22 have been killed, and dozens more injured. Details are of course still emerging, and in the meantime we must pray for the victims, for […]
Today is the feast of Pope Saint John I (470-526), the first Pope to visit Constantinople, on an ambassadorial mission T Emperor Justin on behalf of the Arian King Theodoric, now ruler of the Western empire. The purpose of the mission was to mitigate Justin’s decrees against Arians, a fourth-century heresy which denied the divinity […]
President Trump’s recent firing of James Comey, now-former head of the FBI, has raised hackles, mainly amongst liberals, who at one point had no great love of Comey, but resent him being fired by Trump, without apparent warning, like the top cop in the nation was on some reality television show. Readers may peruse Mark […]
The 100th anniversary of Fatima is a significant one in the minds of many, not least due to the effect of the apparitions on the momentous events of the 20th century, but also in connection with the purported prophecy of Pope Leo XIII, who as the century began, said the Devil would have a ‘100 […]
Pursuant to President Trump’s executive order on the notorious Johnson Amendment, my Dad put me onto an article in the National Review, recounting the limitations of this well-intentioned action of the Commander-in-Chief. The author makes a good case that personal executive orders cannot stand against the full force of entrenched law, which is where the […]
Blessed Catherine of Saint Augustine is listed as one of the ‘six founders’ of the Church in Canada, and I will offer the other six when I find out who they might be. Saint Franҫois de Laval, whose feast we celebrated a couple of days ago on May 6th, must surely be one of them, […]
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 […]
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 […]