(Photo: Jüppsche / Wikimedia Commons CC BY-SA 3.0) I first met Joseph Ratzinger when I was 15 years old. No, not in person, but I was...

(Photo: Wikimedia Commons/Public Domain) The Joseph Ratzinger I knew for 35 years — first as prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine...

Amidst the sundry aggravations of contemporary life in these United States, few have such a cringe-inducing effect on me as a ubiquitous...

We count our years from the birth of Christ, and Christmas begins the year of the Lord 2023. The secular practice of making a resolution...

Now, on Christmas Day, the nine months have been fulfilled. What began on the day of Annunciation is made visible to the world in the...

A scene that’s sadly all too familiar to the United States, especially to Colorado, but quite foreign to idyllic Connecticut… Today we...

Several weeks ago, I was invited on short notice to help “fill a table” at a benefit dinner. The theme of the evening was the Roaring...

The Year of Our Lord 2023 will likely witness Catholic dramas we cannot predict now; that is the way of Providence. What we can know with...

My state witnessed an unmitigated tragedy on Nov. 19 when a gunman opened fire in a gay club in Colorado Springs, killing five and...

Last month’s midterm elections made it painfully clear that many pro-life advocates and politicians are at sea in the post-Roe v. Wade...

Memo to both newly elected members of Congress like J.D. Vance and incumbents like Josh Hawley and Kevin McCarthy: It’s time to stop...

Catholics are not winning any popularity contests. Not only do we still face fallout from the abuse crisis, we also now regularly hear...

I’ll confess to some exasperation when, during the 2016 campaign, Republican vice-presidential nominee Mike Pence described himself as an...

Jesus and The Disciples Going To Emmaus by Gustave Doré, edited. (Photo: Public Domain) This past Summer, I celebrated the tenth...

Thanks to the Franco-Prussian War, the First Vatican Council was suspended in October 1870 and never reconvened. Before its unanticipated...

In my last column, I wrote about the Eucharist as the food we need to spiritually survive and flourish in our secular culture. Jesus is...

(Photo: Jill Dimond / Unsplash) Well, I still haven’t mastered the art of writing columns AHEAD of major Catholic feasts and observances....

The Eucharist is a great work of cooperation. We supply the matter — the bread and wine, which is not simply natural material, but the...

On the morning of October 17, 1978, the newly-elected Pope John Paul II concelebrated Mass with the College of Cardinals and pledged that...

(Photo: Jackson David / Unsplash) Have you ever encountered a situation where your response was…well, weird? Where you could see that you...