The Narthex
Local Commemorations of Holy Men & Women
The Pope encourages all dioceses to recognize their Saints, Blesseds, Venerables, & Servants of God
By James Thunder | December 8th 2024 8:52 PMFrom October 19, 2020, to April 14, 2021, this blog featured my essay -- split into a 35-part series -- on the recognition of holiness in laypeople (Part I is linked below). At the end of Part V, I made three recommendations that would aid "all of us -- bishops,…
READ FULL BLOG POSTGrumpy Old Men
Can they be saints? God does write straight with crooked lines
By James Hanink | August 26th 2024 12:07 AMSome of my best friends are grumpy old men. So the question arises: Can they be saints? Let’s hope so. Keep in mind, gentle reader, that not so long ago a concerned lady, a scholar of note, asked me whether the NOR itself had fallen into the hands of grumpy…
READ FULL BLOG POSTSt. Maximilian Kolbe: A New Kind of Martyr
Before him, martyrdom traditionally involved the element of 'in odium fidei'
By John M. Grondelski | August 14th 2024 12:18 PMAugust 14 is the feast of St. Maximilian Kolbe, martyr. Kolbe, a 47-year old Polish Franciscan, gave his life in substitution for another man in Auschwitz’s starvation bunker. To recap: Kolbe was arrested by the German occupiers of Poland in February 1941 and sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp. In…
READ FULL BLOG POSTVirginity in the Modern World
Do modern people understand, much less value, virginity?
By John M. Grondelski | August 12th 2024 12:45 PMVatican II talked about the Church in dialogue with the modern world. Some of us have wondered whether that dialogue has been largely one-sided, i.e., modernity talking and the Church listening. One hopes the dialogue also would proceed in the other direction, to a world largely convinced of its rightness…
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