The Narthex

April 19, 2025 marks the 250th anniversary of the Battles of Lexington and Concord. On April 18, Paul Revere started his famous midnight ride. The Battles of Lexington and Concord are regarded as the start of the American Revolution. True, discontent with the British had been brewing for more than…

Scripture exhorts us, “O, that today you would hear His voice, do not harden your hearts!” (Ps 95:7-8; Heb 3:7-8). Occasionally, that verse appears as a refrain to the Responsorial Psalm at Mass. For those who pray the Liturgy of the Hours, Morning Prayer usually begins with Psalm 95. Why…

Social media upended the news world by providing ordinary people an opportunity to raise and discuss matters the establishment media didn’t or wouldn’t. I’ve also found it a place to discover ideas that deserve further discussion but which, because they aren’t on the immediate news cycle, won’t get their due.…

A tweet got me thinking about manufacturing jobs. The poster asked, “Do we really want manufacturing jobs back?” He seemed incredulous and saw an attempt to re-shore manufacturing as “turning back the clock.” My answer: Yes. As the post-COVID “recovery” showed us, America and many Western countries are extremely vulnerable…

Writing in the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters criticizes the economic thinking of the Trump Administration, particularly the priorities of Office of Management and Budget Director Russell Vought (the article is linked below). This paragraph particularly caught me:

The marriage of fiscal austerity with Christian values strikes…

Today is the 20th anniversary of the death of Pope St. John Paul II. I miss him. John Paul was foundational in my life as a Catholic theologian. I was a college sophomore studying at St. Mary's College in Orchard Lake, Michigan, when he was elected. In those early college…

April 1 … is more than “April Fool’s Day.” It’s the end of the first quarter of the year. Ninety days of 2025 down. Last year I made a point of marking each quarter of the year to invite readers to consider what they’d done (or not done) with New…

Two pundits from opposite ends of the political spectrum manage to reach the same conclusion: being a “poor Church” really stinks for the really poor. Writing in the left-leaning La Croix, Massimo Faggioli of Villanova University bemoans the many harms he imagines Trump 2.0 poses for the Church (see READ FULL BLOG POST

Anyone observing the UK this month will be struck by the absolute supineness with which Prime Minister Keir Starmer and other politicians have fallen over themselves to salute Ramadan and accentuate the “contributions” Islam has made to British society. One thing is for certain: they show themselves apt candidates for…

Get Ready Today is the Solemnity of the Annunciation. From today until Christmas is exactly nine months (for those of you who like to get "holiday" preparations underway early!). Today Jesus' Life began. Over the next several months, I'd like to remind readers on the 25th of just how Our…

Let’s Get the Calendar Minnesota Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar was on social media March 19, proclaiming it as “Medicaid Day of Action.” I expected that shortly thereafter, 46 other blue Senators would repeat the same talking points. Can I ask some mole to please get us the calendar of Democratic…

The Pillar ran a piece March 14 asking, “Does the Church Need a ‘Dallas Charter’ on Money?” (linked below). The gist of the piece was that, as the original Dallas Charter of December 2002 was supposed to protect against clerical sexual abuse, so today a similar document may be needed to…

Oren Cass, formerly of the Manhattan Institute and now of American Compass, is a public policy thinker I respect. I may not agree with everything he says -- for example, he’s willing to make peace with a “secular conservatism” to attract today’s young and religiously disaffiliated -- but I especially…

The Italian website La Bussola Nuova Quotidiana continues to pose uncomfortable questions about ex-Jesuit Marko Rupnik, accused of sexual abuse; his seeming Cardinal Protector, Angelo De Donatis, former Vicar General (the Pope’s Administrator) of the Archdiocese of Rome and now the Church’s Major Penitentiary; and a convent in Montefiola, northeast…

As we settle into Lent, let me recommend a good film about sin worth watching: Sven Nykvist’s 1991 film The Ox. The film is set in 1867 Sweden. Mid-19th century Sweden was not like wealthy, 21st-century Sweden. There is a reason Minnesota and North Dakota have as many Swedes and…