The Narthex

Catholics in Ukraine mark their second Christmas, and third winter, under Russian attack. Instead of awaiting the first star on Christmas Eve to mark the beginning of the Christmas supper, Ukrainian children will watch for incoming Russian missile fire. Instead of angels singing over the winter fields, the sound of…

In a recent post here, I reminisced about the “Committee of Ten Million,” Gil Durand’s 1973 lay initiative to amass ten million petition signatures to be delivered publicly to Congress demanding a Human Life Amendment. Ten million signatures in 1973 would have been about five percent of the U.S. population,…

October 16, 2023, marks the forty-fifth anniversary of the election of St. John Paul II as Pope. There are so many things about his 26-year pontificate for which we should be grateful, but I will focus on one I find particularly important: his Christian humanism. I am aware mention of…

“Keep on doing what you have learned and received” (Phil 4:9). St. Paul's sage advice, in last Sunday’s Second Reading, seems particularly apt for those gathered in Rome for the Synod on Synodality. In recent weeks, we’ve heard some interesting, some bizarre interpretations of how the Church’s Tradition relates to…

November 11 is Veterans Day -- about five weeks from now. On that day we honor those who have served, and especially those who have died, for their country. How do we honor those veterans? The typical American approach is to give speeches, pay tributes, and eventually to lay a…

I’ve been writing a lot about the upcoming Synod on Synodality and the obsession of some prelates with the Church’s “welcoming” attitude. The gist of my argument is that these folks are pushing a notion of “welcome” that is alien to Scripture and the Church’s Tradition, though it may resonate…

“Sex Work,” Trafficking, and Trucks Pamela Paul reports in the New York Times (Aug. 17) that some New York feminists are fighting to get editors to drop the euphemism “sex worker” from their style books. She explains that many have adopted this linguistic stand-in because they don’t want to appear…

"Listen to Him" In both last Sunday's Second Reading (from II Peter) and Gospel, we are exhorted (in the Gospel by no less than God the Father) to "listen to" Jesus. Peter, James, and John "listen" to that message from the bright cloud that overshines Mount Tabor; it would be…

The day will come when the lands of China (and Muslim lands) will open to evangelism. China has been closed since 1949, 74 years. Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe collapsed in 1989 after 72 years. The Roman Empire legalized Christianity under the Edict of Milan in 313…

On August 31, 1970, Bishop Walsh arrived at Kennedy Airport, New York City. He had last been in the United States in 1948. Greeting him were 200 people, including Terence Cardinal (now Servant of God) Cooke of New York, Lawrence Cardinal Shehan of Baltimore, seven more bishops, members of his…

Ukraine’s ongoing attack from Russia is now entering its seventeenth month. Russia continues its aggression, in part because it knows Western attention spans can be short and eager to “move on.” There’s nothing Moscow would like better. As a Polish American, let me tell you: the Central European perspective is…

I call the imprisoned portion of Bishop Walsh’s life his contemplative ministry because of how he later described his activities in prison. He could not celebrate Mass and had neither breviary (the Church’s prayerbook) nor Bible, rosary, crucifix, or any image of Jesus or one of His saints. After he…

In May 1949, Shanghai surrendered to the Communists. By the end of that year, the Communists imprisoned and tortured Chinese bishops, priests, brothers and sisters. The Communists started a church independent of the Pope. In response, Bishop Walsh and the Bureau distributed a pamphlet explaining the difference between the Catholic…

Your Catholic SAT Although many colleges have moved away from standardized tests like the SAT, in the name of “equity” and abandonment of academic standards, I believe they have value. One of the components of the SAT used to be a reading comprehension test. It tests for how closely one…

Jesus once asked His Apostles whether any of them would hand a stone to a child seeking bread (Mt 7:9). I’m worried some of their successors might hand the child neither stone nor bread. In a July 6 interview on Portuguese State Television, cardinal-designate Americo Aguiar, organizer of World Youth…