2017 PROMISES to be a challenging year for the Catholic Church. Thus some new year’s wishes:
I wish Catholic progressives a calmer 2017 than they managed in 2016. The last months of the year now fading into the rear-view mirror were marked by an extraordinary number of bilious attacks on those raising questions about Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation “Amoris Laetitia” from the party of dialogue, collegiality and pluralism.
Author: George Weigel
Christmas and The Divine Proximity
IN OCTOBER 2001, I had a long conversation with Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. It was but weeks after 9/11; a new century and millennium were opening before us; and I wanted to get Cardinal Ratzinger’s view on the main issues for the Church and for theology in the 21st century.
The Persecution of Professor Esolen
by George Weigel PROFESSOR ANTHONY Esolen is a bright jewel in the crown of Catholic higher education in the U.S., a scholar whose brilliant translation of – and commentary on – Dante’s “Divine Comedy” is appreciated far beyond the boundaries of Catholic literary and intellectual life.
Books for Christmas
Take a stand against the electrification of reading and consider the following, in properly bound form, as gifts for those on your Christmas – not “holiday” – list:
Defending Pope Francis By Slandering Church
IF THE CIVIL NEW YEAR is an occasion to resolve to “do better” in the future, the liturgical new year, the real new year that begins at First Vespers on the First Sunday of Advent, is an even better moment for such resolutions. So permit me to suggest a Real New Year’s resolution to those who think it necessary to support Pope Francis by rewriting recent Church history: Stop it.
The Real Thomas More’s Final Act of Thanksgiving
Sir Thomas More bore witness and ultimately “grasped his death,” not to vindicate his sense of self, but as the final and ultimate act of thanks for his having been grasped – and saved – by Truth itself, the Thrice-Holy God.
Catholicism Embodied: ‘The Pivotal Players’
LOOKLING FOR SOME uplift after this tawdry election cycle? Some inspiration for tackling what lies ahead? A good way to enrich Advent? Examples of sanctity to help you be the missionary disciple you were baptized to be? Then let me recommend Bishop Robert Barron’s new DVD series, “Catholicism: The Pivotal Players.”
Catholic WikiLeaks Are No Big Deal
AT THE RISK of causing cardiac distress or cerebral incidents among the bloggers of the Catholic left, let me begin by saying that I agree with the claim that the recent WikiLeaks dump of “Catholic e-mails” from the higher altitudes of the Clinton Machine is no big deal. But if so, why not?
Russian Orthodoxy’s Aggressive Obsessions
by George Weigel WHAT DOES THE Lord’s injunction to turn the other cheek require when it comes to ecumenical dialogue? The question regularly poses itself to those familiar with the website of the Department of External Church Relations of the Russian Orthodox Church (ROC): https://mospat.ru/en.
Changing the Game
FOR THOSE OF US who find it impossible to cast a vote for either Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump on Nov. 8, this poem by Artur Miedzyrzecki, written during Poland’s Solidarity revolution, has a certain resonance: