The Narthex

Cardinal Marx has called for "new thinking" on sexual issues, including celibacy. His liberal perspective reflects pressure to end mandatory priestly celibacy, a contested issue since sexual freedom has become a core principle of modern German culture. Catholics there have become skeptical of celibacy. Last November, the lay Central Committee…

There’s a nasty cold making the rounds. Flu season has officially started. Was that you sneezing? Bless you! Maybe I’ll add gesundheit! Or maybe not, since gesundheit only means “good health,” and once upon a time it signaled a toast. But a blessing is decidedly different, isn’t it? Let’s see…

In a tweet earlier this month, Minnesota State University Professor Eric Sprankle criticized the biblical account of the Annunciation saying that Mary did not give her consent.  When the verses containing her fiat were pointed out to him, he walked it back saying that because of the power chasm existing…

A recent poll revealed that almost one-third of Americans and Brits are in favor of “rebranding” Santa Claus.  Santa 2.0 might wear sneakers instead of his trademark boots or he might become she or it, with 27% of respondents favoring either gender neutralizing him or making him a woman.  Christian…

In The World’s First Love, Fulton Sheen draws attention to the timing of the definition of the Immaculate Conception.  The first televangelist sees in Pope Pius IX’s declaration a certain prophetic character that stood in stark contrast to the spirit of the times.  Fueled by Rousseau, Darwin, Marx, and Mill, the…

Remember the drill? Which of these things does not belong? Example #1 (apple, banana, carrot). Easy! A carrot isn’t a fruit, so it doesn’t belong. Example # 2 (cat, dog, butterfly). Well, a butterfly isn’t a mammal, so it doesn’t belong. The logical point in each example is that the…

In a low-rent Beacon Hill tenement where I once lived, I visited almost daily a disabled pensioner who was a former horse jockey, recently suffering from blackouts. He had had a metal plate embedded in his skull after a racing tumble, and it caused him unpredictable fainting spells. His merely…

You may recall New Oxford Review’s story of a Providence College student named Michael Smalanskas, who bravely confronted politically-correct college administrators over his display about traditional Church teaching on marriage (see “The New Hate Speech: Catholic Teaching at a Catholic College,” May 2018; link here: https://www.newoxfordreview.org/documents/the-new-hate-speech-catholic-teaching-at-a-catholic-college/). Now it’s another…

When I die, I’ll have plenty to say. But, gentle reader, you’ll not hear it. Friends, neighbors, and writers of obituaries will, no doubt, have something to say. Fortunately, with my not being an old soldier, no one will comment that “he just faded away.” Most of us, it seems,…

Friedrich Nietzsche once posited that the best way to defeat Christianity was to attack it not based on its truth but on its practical impossibility.  From its impracticality the world will draw its own conclusions regarding its veracity.  There is a certain diabolic deftness to an attack on this front…

As reported in a number of news sources, there are now two separate “migrant caravans” heading towards the US-Mexico border, totaling about 10,000 migrants from Central American countries.  Their crawl to the border is like a slow fuse sure to reignite the contentious debate over immigration.  Protecting migrants is part…

When Margaret Sanger attempted to attack the Church’s opposition to contraception, she did so mainly through anecdotal evidence of the thousands of mothers suffering under the burden of too many children.  She even went so far as to collect the stories of these women and bind them in a book…

Does the Synod of Bishops on Young People, running this month in Rome, strike anyone else as same-old same-old? The Church continues to come across as bureaucratic and uninspiring. Aside from some free trips to Rome for some motivated young people, it's hard to see how a train of meetings…

Student protests have become routine, such that nobody takes them seriously anymore. So now, the adults are getting involved — as they did with last April’s walkouts for gun control — approving and supporting their charges’ acts of “defiance” — which really don’t defy anything if everybody is on board…