DURING TALKS AROUND the country in recent years, I’ve been asking Catholic audiences how many of those present know the date of their baptism. The high-end response is a little under 10 percent. The average is about 2-3 percent.
Author: George Weigel
The Best Nuncio We’ve Had Thus Far
The announcement that Archbishop Christoph Pierre will succeed Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò as apostolic nuncio to the U.S. is an opportunity to pay tribute to a courageous churchman who has served Catholicism, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis in an exemplary way during his tenure in Washington.
The Merciful Grace Of the Truth
At the Easter Vigil a few weeks ago, tens of thousands of men and women, mature adults, were baptized or entered into full communion with the Catholic Church. Each of them walked a unique itinerary of conversion; each of these “newborn babes” (1 Peter 2:2) is a singular work of the Holy Spirit.
After the ‘G-word’ Has Been Spoken
In the early Church, witnesses to the faith who had been persecuted and tortured but not killed were known as “martyr-confessors.”
Easter Is Not a Question Mark
The grittiness of Lent, and the “intransigent historical claims” without which Easter makes no sense at all, should remind us that Christianity does not rest on myths or “narratives,” but on radically changed human lives whose effect on their times are historical fact.
A Sordid Anniversary, To Be Remembered
The crucial moment in this calculated aggression came 70 years ago, on March 8-10, 1946, in Lviv, Ukraine. There, after more than a year of secret police coercion, a non-canonical “council” (or “Sobor”) of Ukrainian Greek Catholic clergy “voted” (without discussion and by a “spontaneous” show of hands) to abrogate the 1596 Union of Brest that had brought their Church into full communion with Rome. Not a single Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishop was present.
Resisting the Demagogue
YOU’VE GOT TO have a good memory for mid-Sixties pop music to remember the Seekers, an Aussie quartet that once vied for the top of the British charts with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones (and did quite well here in the U.S., too). But this isn’t a pop culture quiz; it’s a reflection on our increasingly disturbing 2016 presidential election, with a little help from, yes, the Seekers.
Ukraine’s Greek Catholic Heroes
Ever since the Maidan revolution of dignity, Russian propaganda has been pumped into the world in a steady stream. Most unfortunately, it has too often misrepresented what the Kremlin is up to in Ukraine while slandering Ukraine’s Greek Catholic leaders.
ISIS, Genocide and The US Response
Martyrdom is a daily fact of life wherever the black flag of ISIS stains the Mesopotamian sky.
An Invitation to a Roman Lent
This week, George Weigel writes about the best Lent of his life in Rome, where he participated in the city’s ancient Lenten station church pilgrimage.