Topics
From the NOR Dossiers
Eschatology & End Times
Was Pope Benedict XVI Holding Back the Destroying Flood?
May 2024Key to the great apostasy is the liturgy. “The way we treat the liturgy,” Benedict said, “determines the destiny of the faith and the Church.”
VIEW ARTICLEAre We Living in the Last Days?
January-February 2024Scripture and Tradition testify that the order of this world ends in the chaos from which it was formed when the hand of God withdraws its providential order.
VIEW ARTICLEWill There Be Sex in Heaven?
June 2023Christ’s answer to the Sadducees does not indulge the misunderstandings that underlie their question but points us back to what is fundamental.
VIEW ARTICLEWill There Be Marriage in Heaven?
November 2022Is the bond of unity of man and wife, created by oath in a sacramental marriage, also a spiritual bond that survives mortal death?
VIEW ARTICLEThe Variety & Theological Implications of Private Revelations
November 2022Evil spirits, often in a very subtle manner, have been far more clever and more destructive of sound spiritual thinking than generally supposed.
VIEW ARTICLEChoose Your Own Eternity
October 2020What follows death is the extension into eternity of what we chose in this world. When we pass from this life, what we wanted here will be what we want forever.
VIEW ARTICLEWhy American Politics Marginalizes Catholic Voters
October 2018American Catholics must be careful not to be more American than Catholic, especially since American politics is essentially Protestant.
VIEW ARTICLEScalfari Strikes Again
June 2018Knowing Italian journalist Eugenio Scalfari's habit of not taking notes during interviews, why does Francis continue to allow him to stir up controversy and cause PR headaches for the Vatican?
VIEW ARTICLEAre There Atheists in Heaven?
June 2018Pope Francis well knows that whenever he speaks into a microphone, he is addressing not only those present but the whole world, in his capacity as leader of the Catholic Church. Therefore, his words are open to scrutiny.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Antichrist in Political Philosophy
March 2016We are each created for a supernatural end that is, as such, beyond our nature but not beyond our possibility since we are also given the grace to accept it.
VIEW ARTICLEIsaac Newton: Scientist, Theologian & End-Times Prophet
March 2015Newton's terminal date is reckoned by the prophets Daniel and John that the return of Christ will commence 1,260 years after the restoration of the Roman Empire.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Davidic Typological Basis for the Dogma of the Assumption
July-August 2014This Marian dogma is integrally related to the notion of our Lady as the Queen of Heaven or, rather, the queen mother of the Messiah, the Son of David.
VIEW ARTICLEObama the Great & Powerful
October 2013The American public has greeted the ascent of Barack Obama with quasi-religious zeal, as exemplified in his 2008 campaign slogan, "Faith, Hope, Obama."
VIEW ARTICLEMemory, Regret & God's Merciful Forgetting
October 2013Pope John Paul II wrote that we live our earthly lives in the gap between the person we are and the person we ought to be.
VIEW ARTICLEDare We Hope for the Salvation of the Unborn?
October 2012God's mercy is unfathomable, and He is truly the Good Father who knows how to give what's best to His children.
VIEW ARTICLEGurus of a Post-Human Age
January-February 2012The influence of post-humanist academics reveals how completely the secular academic world has embraced the culture of death.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Luxury of Religious Fanaticism
September 2011Though we in the West have the luxury of religious fanaticism and the freedom to believe or reject false religious claimants as we see fit, our Christian brethren in other countries aren't so "blessed."
VIEW ARTICLEAvoiding Guilt by Association
September 2011False doomsday prophecies and other gross theological errors that present faith as delusional and oppressive can taint all forms of Christianity and implicate all Christians to some extent.
VIEW ARTICLEWhen Prophets Don't Pass the Test
July-August 2011That there will be an end of this world is unquestionably sound Christian doctrine, but when that end will come is another question altogether.
VIEW ARTICLECovenant Correction
November 2009The USCCB has taken the opportunity to clarify ambiguities in its document on Catholic-Jewish relations.
VIEW ARTICLEI Believe in the Life of the World to Come
January 2009Today's enlightened and "free" unbelievers are nothing more than "the loose-jointed marionettes of contemporaneity."
VIEW ARTICLEEschatology According to Jacques Maritain
November 2008Jacques Maritain claims that the inhabitants of Hell, while hating God as the Author of glory, still love Him as the Author of "being."
VIEW ARTICLEDid Mary's Assumption Really Occur?
July-August 2008In the absence of a credible dormition narrative from the early Church, is there any other source to turn to for a plausible description?
VIEW ARTICLEWhat Rapturists Miss About Rapture Theology
May 2008How can the Christian suffer as Christ suffered if he is airlifted off the face of the earth before he can undergo the most severe kind of suffering (the "tribulation")?
VIEW ARTICLEOn Freeing Children From Limbo
April 2008Parents experience great grief when they do not have the moral assurance of the salvation of their unbaptized children.
VIEW ARTICLEBalthasar, Christ’s Descent & the Empty Hell
July-August 2007Review of Light in Darkness: Hans Urs von Balthasar and the Catholic Doctrine of Christ's Descent into Hell
VIEW ARTICLEApocalypse Now (and Then)
May 2007Kirsch's absorbing personality profile of the scrupulous, dogmatic, and uncompromising John portrays him as a man in great distress in a pagan culture.
VIEW ARTICLEChristian Zionists: False Friends of Israel
December 2006Christian Zionism is not concerned with giving the Jews a homeland. It is concerned with the Rapture.
VIEW ARTICLEHow Lovely!
November 2006Communio, the premier journal for whooping up Hans Urs von Bathasar, informs us confidently that all men are indeed saved.
VIEW ARTICLEAutomatic Forgiveness
September 2005Fr. Ron Rolheiser says Jesus provides automatic forgiveness. Commit suicide if you want. Fr. Ron is giving you permission.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Broad & Comfortable Road to Lukewarm Christianity & Destruction
July/August 2004If our Lord could use "narrow gate" imagery to spur His listeners to repentance, then so can we.
VIEW ARTICLEA Groundbreaking Book
June 2004Jews of Old Testament times had to insulate themselves totally against the Gentiles because the pagan gods were demonic spirits.
VIEW ARTICLEEternal Consequences
June 2004Review of Inferno and Purgatorio by Dante, translated and edited by Anthony Esolen
VIEW ARTICLEBeware of Ronitis, The Latest Deadly Disease
February 2003Fr. Ron says suicide is a "painful disease."
VIEW ARTICLEThe Dubious Adrienne von Speyr
September 2002Perhaps tied to old memories from her pre-Catholic youth, Speyr's private revelations seem to conflict with Catholic teaching on vital points.
VIEW ARTICLEWhat Is the Purpose of This World?
February 2002God took a risk in inviting, not demanding, our acceptance of salvation. The invitation can be accepted, or it can be rejected.
VIEW ARTICLELast Judgment (Lite)
June 2001According to the "Prophecies of St. Malachy," only two popes would follow John Paul II: "De Gloria Olivae" (the Glory of the Olive) and "Petrus Romanus" (Peter the Roman).
VIEW ARTICLEThe Sky Is Falling! (Yet Again)
April 2001The authors of "The Coming Global Superstorm" seem strangely excited about an imminent climatic cataclysm.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Failures of the New Lectionary
June 2000It entirely translates and edits out the Bible’s teaching on fornication, and renders the doctrine of Hell if not invisible, then opaque.
VIEW ARTICLEThe Inflated Reputation of Hans Urs von Balthasar
March 2000Hoping that all will be saved – when Scripture says that some are lost – is like hoping that no one ever sins when we know that Adam and Eve sinned.
VIEW ARTICLESpeak Ye Uncomfortably to Jerusalem
December 1999"Harden not your hearts! And soften not your seats."
VIEW ARTICLEThe Last Days & the Church
September 1989Predictive Scripture differs from the odd example of human prescience in that it tells us the eternal significance of events to which it alludes.
VIEW ARTICLEThomas Merton on War, Gog & Magog
June 1986Merton’s decision to get actively involved in a campaign to abolish war came at a time when Cold War tensions reached a flash point and atmospheric nuclear testing was increasing.
VIEW ARTICLEBad Things & Good People Revisited
March 1986Vertical religion and horizontal religion are parts of an integral whole. You go up by going sideways, and you go best sideways by focusing upward.
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