One of the adornments of American Catholicism turned 90 on May 21: Dr. Paul R. McHugh, longtime head of psychiatry at Johns Hopkins University Hospital and a healer after the heart of the Divine Physician. Few scientists have made greater contributions to unraveling the mysteries of our complex inner lives than Paul McHugh.
Guest Columnists
A Most Unfortunate Roman Intervention
Cardinal Ladaria’s letter includes statements that are not self-evidently clear, in part because they seem inconsistent with what the congregation he heads taught in its 2002 “Doctrinal Note,” entitled The Participation of Catholics in Political Life.
Vatican II on Catholics In Public Life
The Second Vatican Council’s Pastoral Constitution on the Church in the Modern World (often referenced by its Latin title, Gaudium et Spes) is typically regarded as the most “progressive” of the 16 documents of Vatican II: the conciliar text that bespoke a new Catholic embrace of modernity while aligning the Church with liberal democratic political forces throughout the world.
Gaia, False Gods, and Public Policy
Is ours a secular world? Or is it a world that’s traded authentic religion for a modern form of idolatry — one that’s corrupting our politics because it displaces reason with the kind of existential dread the ancient Canaanites once felt about Moloch?
Marriage and Schizophrenia
For this Month of Mental Health, we will discuss whether a person with schizophrenia can validly contract marriage. Apparently, the combination of marriage and schizophrenia in a mathematical equation may equal marital failure and sacramental invalidity.
What Would Cardinal Meyer Say?
Unfortunately forgotten in most U.S. Catholic circles today, Cardinal Albert Gregory Meyer, archbishop of Milwaukee from 1953 to 1958 and archbishop of Chicago from 1958 to 1965, was one of the country’s leading churchmen in the mid-20th century.
Hans Küng and The Perils of Fame
Hans Küng certainly had talent. His doctoral dissertation on Karl Barth, arguably the greatest of 20th-century Protestant theologians, became a pioneering book in ecumenical theology.
God’s Harsh and Dreadful Love
The Paschal Triduum this year seemed like a return from exile: Holy Thursday’s Evening Mass of the Lord’s Supper, in church; Good Friday’s Commemoration of the Lord’s Passion, in church; Saturday evening’s Easter Vigil,in church — what a blessing.
Filipinos, ‘Smugglers Of Faith’
This year 2021, marks the 500th anniversary of Christianity in the Philippine islands. The historical background of the celebration is the arrival of the fleet headed by Ferdinand Magellan. His principal mission was to find a westward route to the Moluccas Islands, where spices were thought to be found. Magellan, as we know, was a Portuguese explorer in the service of the Spanish crown.
Light From the East
Ten years ago last month, the Synod of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church took a striking decision: it elected its youngest member, 40-year-old Bishop Sviatoslav Shevchuk, as leader of the largest of the eastern Catholic Churches, a choice confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI.