The Narthex

February is observed as Black History Month. This year was also the 95th birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. Both events are relevant to renewing our commitment to a colorblind society, especially after last summer’s Supreme Court decisions on discrimination in college admissions. The man who spoke at the Lincoln…

In 2013, Pope Francis suspended Bishop Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst of Limburg, Germany, a diocese which includes Frankfurt, who renovated his residence and other church-owned buildings to the tune of over $41 million. The projects included "luxuries like a $20,000 bathtub, a $1.1 million landscaped garden and plans for an 800-square-foot…

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…

This past weekend marked the semiquincentennial of the Boston Tea Party. Two hundred and fifty years ago, on December 16, 1773, assorted colonials in Boston dumped chests of the British East India Company’s tea into Boston Harbor. One could clearly see how much the Americans had lost their British roots:…

Fr. Gilligan was a wily American priest who served in the Vatican Diplomatic Corps and saved many lives during the Communist takeover in China. As mentioned previously in this blog series, I must here reply to claims made by Ms. Bibiani Yee-Wing Wong in a past issue of U.S. Catholic…

As we marked Thanksgiving last week, my memories reached back 50 years to Thanksgiving 1973. I remember the day well: sunny but chilly. The memory is an opportunity for me to salute a man I never met, Gil Durand. (I think it’s Durand. It might be Durant. He doesn’t come…

Readers will recall that in Part 1 of this series I quoted from Msgr. Breslin’s funeral eulogy for Father Gilligan, telling two short stories about this wily priest-diplomat. His first story concerned foreign missionaries, as related in Part 2. His second story concerned native Chinese. During the Communist takeover of…

Stage One: The first Thanksgiving was celebrated in Plymouth Colony in 1621. The Pilgrims set out for North America in September 1620. Storms put them off-course during their Atlantic crossing, to land farther north -- off present-day Massachusetts -- than they planned. Finding themselves in a wilderness at the start…

Ms. Wong disparages the credibility of Msgr. Breslin’s accounts in his funeral eulogy for Father Gilligan since Breslin did not hear of these events from Gilligan himself when he was living with him.[1] But Msgr. Breslin stated that, for both stories, he relied on multiple sources, “a stream”…

In 2017, I published online a comprehensive biographical essay of an American priest, in which I highlighted his time as a Vatican diplomat in Hong Kong, entitled “Martin T. Gilligan: An American Hero Neglected—Until Today: Saving Lives During the Communist Takeover in China, 1946-1952.” That essay is no longer accessible,…

Lots of people bemoan the demise of civics. They argue that recovering civics might be a first step in recovering civility, a friendlier if not shared political discourse versus our contemporary polarization. There have even been government efforts -- state and federal -- to introduce mandatory civics education. Some critics…

Today is the memorial of St. Isaac Jogues and Companions -- the 17th century Jesuit North American Martyrs -- slain in upper New York State. So far, they haven’t been cancelled as have Franciscan Junipero Serra or Jesuit Pierre-Jean De Smet. I feared they might, especially after Pope Francis’s 2022…

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…

Columbus Day is one of the next focal points in the revisionist effort to rewrite American history to highlight what "woke" activists consider its irredeemably evil roots. Far from “discovering” America, they'll say, Christopher Columbus was a “conqueror” who brought colonization, exploitation, disease, death, and a trail of tears to…

The Church celebrates the Solemnity of the Assumption, when the Blessed Virgin Mary, “at the end of her earthly life,” was taken body and soul into heaven. The feast is a logical extension of the Resurrection: the latter’s transfiguring power is intended to reach every one of Christ’s followers, of…