The American continents are mysteriously united under Our Lady’s care, with the entire continents having been placed under the patronage of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the United States under the Immaculate Conception. John Grondelski recently reflected on the fittingness of the United State’s patroness as the Immaculate Conception. He Read more…
Rodney Stark’s famous The Rise of Christianity proposed an oft-cited model for Christian growth in the early centuries of the Church: Rather than proposing exact numbers, Stark is simply trying to prove the point that a consistent rate of growth compounds over time, even if it begins with such a Read more…
Everyone can agree on one point at least: ad orientem worship is controversial. I appreciate the thoughtful and detailed response to my Denver Catholic column on ad orientem worship by Fr. Felix Media-Algaba, “Eucharistic Orientation according to Vatican II.” Here are some brief thoughts on his critique of my column. Read more…
My last post focused on the background of the Divine Mercy devotion and St. Faustina’s Diary was actually the first Catholic book I ever read, back in 1995. I went on to read John Paul II’s Crossing the Threshold of Hope and his biography (in the pre-Witness to Hope days), Read more…
This is my second post exploring the connection of East and West in the Church (with the first focused on Orthodox saints brought into the Catholic Church through the Eastern rites). When looking at the relationship of the Catholic and Orthodox Churches (as distinct from the Oriental Orthodox Churches, which Read more…
I just finished reading John Anthony McGuckin’s The Eastern Orthodox Church: A New History. Rather than a traditional chronological history, McGuckin offers reflections on the nature of the Orthodox Church through particular figures and events of history. As a professor at Oxford and publishing the volume with Yale University Press, Read more…
What does it mean to be a Latin rite Catholic? Does “Latin” have much a determining factor on how we worship and understand our life as Catholics. Latin not only served as the basis of Catholic theology in the West, it also served as the basis for law and education. Read more…
The greatest unresolved issue for the Church, in my opinion, consists in how to make sense of the modern world. Is there something there positive that will show us the way forward? Do we just need to abandon it and start from scratch? How do we live in this increasingly Read more…
Five years ago, I wrote an article asking whether St. Gregory of Narek (or Grigor Narekatsi, 950-1003), an Armenian monk, the then newly announced doctor of the Church, was a Catholic. The answer is clearly that he was not, making him the first non-Catholic doctor of the Catholic Church. The Read more…
The four gigantic minarets surrounding Hagia Sophia serve as a constant reminder of the Turkish triumph in 1453 over the holy city founded by the emperor Constantine. The church, turned mosque, turned museum, and now reverted to a mosque stands undoubtedly among the greatest architectural accomplishments in human history. Its Read more…