The Narthex

In the wake of Vatican II, all sorts of Catholic practices and popular devotions were deconstructed. The process often occurred for simplistic and callow reasons, with no thought to why those practices and devotions had become so established or what would be lost -- including in terms of follow-on effects…

April 1 has arrived, this year as Easter Monday. We’re in the Octave of Easter and approaching the great Feast of Divine Mercy Sunday. One thing many people won’t note, except perhaps accountants and economists, is that the first quarter of 2024 is now over. Yes, perhaps it’s hard to…

Today at 1:20 a.m., a container ship struck the finest bridge in all Baltimore, causing its collapse and leaving seven vehicles to drop into the bay below. The bridge was on the ring road around Baltimore and tens of thousands of people passed over it every day. It had been…

The term “shock and awe” entered our lexicon during the 1990-91 Gulf War when the American-led coalition sought to eject Iraq after the latter’s invasion of Kuwait. “Shock and awe” referred to the coalition’s aerial bombardment prior to a tank and infantry assault. It was meant to demoralize the Iraqi…

When sorely pressed, my mother often said, “Let’s put it all in God’s hands.” Such was the path to peace. But of what sort? Friends of the indefatigable socialist Norman Thomas often commented that he never lost his capacity for outrage. But to what end? Of late, both Mom’s adage…

I was sitting in church waiting for Sunday Mass to begin. My church has a large crucifix with a corpus above and behind the altar. With the image of the crucified Christ in my eyes, I spoke to Him about all the troubles of our current times. Then I implored…

I’ve regularly criticized the contemporary Church’s generous toleration of cremation. I’ve voiced many reasons why this indulgence of cremation is wrongheaded, but one reason that I think gets too little attention is the symbolic confusion that cremation generates. Man is a symbolic creature, one who is prone to see, recognize,…

A big lie is that Catholics oppress women by, for example, not allowing them to be ordained priests or deacons, by not giving them (enough) positions of power in the Vatican, by keeping them “barefoot and pregnant” by opposing contraception and abortion, and by holding marriage up as a realizable…

It is serendipitous coincidence that the Gospel of Our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, “the man who came to Jesus at night” (John 3:2), occurred this year on the same Sunday that Daylight Savings Time began -- and within ten days of the beginning of spring. (Spring this year begins the…

The story of the three Magi from the East following the star to Jerusalem is told during the Christmas season (Matt. 2:1-18). It is not like the heart-warming aspects of Christ’s birth, with an angel speaking to shepherds and angels singing. Rather, it is a story that ends with weeping…

Donald DeMarco, over at Crisis (linked below), asks whether Pope Francis has a “fixation” with ecological issues. A cursory look at environmentalism and climate fundamentalism suggests these "isms" have in many cases acquired all the attributes of a secular religion. To what degree have even sincerely religious people allowed environmental…

Oren Cass's First Things Lecture in Washington, D.C., on March 4 addressed the topic “Constructing Conservatism in the Secular Age.” The talk’s core argument was that American conservatism’s reliance on religious faith to make its central values arguments collides with the growing secularization of U.S. culture, causing it to lose…

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a Shakespeare line about a Hamlet character whose overacting makes one believe she is hellbent on concealing the truth of things. That line comes to mind on reading a featured editorial at Vatican News (Feb. 27): “Fiducia supplicans: Non-Liturgical blessings and Pope…

Modern western Christians often like to persuade themselves that there is no real and personal Devil, but wishful thinking of that kind wouldn't wash with our Church Fathers and doesn't square with Gospel accounts of the Gadarene swine or of Jesus's own temptations in the wilderness. C.S. Lewis in his…

I have noticed an Ash Wednesday phenomenon in recent years in Washington. It even preceded COVID. Various clergymen set up tables outside Metro subway stations, offering ashes-on-demand. Last Wednesday morning, for example, there was something of an ecumenical duel outside one station. On the north side of the entrance were…