Three years after their wedding, a couple was navigating through rough waters in their marriage. Several small breakups happened here and there. The last separation was a long three months. Then, they finally decided to start all over again as husband and wife. They wanted to renew their wedding vows and so they approached the same priest who had solemnized their marriage.
The annual March for Life in Washington began in 1974 — and it’s hard to think of a more admirable or consistent public witness to the dignity of the human person being given for so many years by so many people of all races, religions, and social classes.
A common misconception holds that early “modernity” invented the “individual”: the idea that everyone is a someone with a unique identity independent of family, tribe, racial group, or nation.
Christianity begins in a real place, at a specific point in time in which real men and women met an itinerant rabbi named Jesus of Nazareth — and after what they had thought to be the utter catastrophe of his degrading and violent death, met him anew as the Risen Lord Jesus.
When I began working with some regularity in Rome thirty years ago, my elders and betters taught me that no one paid much attention to the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano.
In July 2016, as we were sitting on the fantail of the Swiss sidewheeler Rhone while she chugged across Lake Geneva, my host pointed out the city of Lausanne, where a massive, glass-bedecked curvilinear building was shimmering in the summer sun. “Isn’t that the headquarters of the International Olympic Committee?” I asked.
Some suggestions for Christmas giving, in the form of books that amuse, inspire, educate or all-of-the-above.
Early in December, we will be closing the Year of St. Joseph. Just like so many partings, we may find ourselves with mixed emotions. One thing is for sure: This year of grace has blessed the Church and has enriched many lives spiritually. It also has fostered more devotion to the Patron of the Universal Church and the Master of Interior Life.
This Thanksgiving, no one living in the United States should be anything but profoundly grateful for the privilege of living in this country. No one.
The culture war defining much of contemporary public life throughout the western world comes in two forms.
