As promised, I have attached below the novena prayer to Saint Joseph, which the Archbishop of Ottawa, Terence Prendergast, has asked all Catholics in Canada to pray , along with some sacrifice and fasting (a propos already in this latter time of Lent), particularly against the great evil of medically-assisted murder-suicide. The novena begins today, […]
*I have an article just published this morning in Crisis magazine (crisismagazine.com), which you can find here. I will post it here after a few days, for your perusal. We are indeed entering dark days in this Dominion of Canada, and I am glad to see the Archbishop of Ottawa, Canada’s primatial See, has asked […]
Well, you have likely heard that Father Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman, has clarified that Pope Francis was indeed referring to contraception in his remarks on the flight back from Mexico. Here is the relevant section in Italian, from an interview which Father Lombardi gave to Vatican Radio: L’esempio che ha fatto di Paolo […]
*Pursuant to my recent post on Pope Francis’ ambiguous and confusing remarks on contraception, it turns out that my initial discomfiture of hearing of Paul VI’s supposed permission to nuns in the Congo to use the Pill in case they were raped was a healthy sign: According to Father Z (his blog posting on this […]
Like many around the world, Catholic or not, I have been trying to figure out Pope Francis. It is always a difficult task to ‘get’ a man, to understand whence he comes and whither he goes, not least due to the complexity of people’s backgrounds and that unpredictable reality that we call’ ‘free-will’, but which […]
*A Happy New Year to all of our readers, and may 2016 bring you all many joys and blessings, even if there are a few crosses and sufferings along the way. As the Catechism reminds us in the words of Saint Rose of Lima “apart from the cross there is no other ladder by which […]
I attended a winter wedding this past weekend, something I have the honour and privilege of doing more often than most (attend weddings, that is, not specifically winter ones), as many of my former students make that bold and hope-filled move of tying the irrevocable knot. I don’t think you will take it as […]
Marc Bauerlein has an insightful essay on false innocence in the recent issue of First Things, describing those who feign an innocence that, perhaps at some level they think they have, but, deeper down, in their heart of hearts, in that still, small voice of conscience I alluded to in my last post, they know […]
I will often ask my students in class whether Christ was a human person. The answer may seem straightforward: Of course He was (or is that is)? But the correct response is that He was not. This may at first glance seem counter-intuitive, but, in fact, is a central truth of our faith, without […]
I try, in some small way, and not, I must admit, very well, to resist the celebration of Christmas before Christmas. I know this is a weathered lament, but one that merits restating: We prepare for Christ in the season of Advent, and we celebrate his arrival with Christmas. The zeitgeist of the age, outside […]