“We are all in the gutter,” says Lord Darlington in Oscar Wilde’s play, Lady Windermere’s Fan, “but some of us are looking at the stars.” These words, spoken by a fictional character in a comedy written for the stage, are nonetheless applicable to all of us. We are all in the gutter, but only some of us are looking at the stars. Many of us are face down in the gutter without any interest in the…

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Why must the wicked always appear to be prospering, while the virtuous are left to miscarry? Not a new question, to be sure, an unnamed Hebrew poet having taken up the tale of unmerited suffering some twenty-five hundred years before, naming it the Book of Job, a text which has remained every bit as timeless as, say, the tragedies of Sophocles or Shakespeare. So, it’s not likely to go out of…

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It’s over. I’ve already portrayed myself as Zoomer-Anakin and you as Millennial-Obi-Wan and the Boomer-Council. If you didn’t understand that sentence, don’t worry, it just means you aren’t connected 24/7 with the bowels of political X, which is almost certainly a good thing. The past few days, one of the hot trending topics among the right wing leading up to the 2026 midterm elections was…

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It seems the purpose of Fr. James Martin’s recent charm offensive with orthodox Church people and outlets is to lull some of the faithful into a kind of complacency or an acceptance of defeat about homosexuality in the Church. It’s over, folks. The “LGBTQs” have won. Those icky hateful Catholics and conservatives have lost. Time to move on. Time for unity! This came across abundantly in Fr.

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Every weekend at my parish, inevitably someone will walk out of Mass and say to me, “Father, thank you for your prayers for my grandson’s friend’s father, the tests came back negative.” And my poor addled brain will struggle to recall the interaction I had with this person three months ago, usually without success. For years I wondered if I was failing as a priest because I could not keep…

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Ever since its inception, rock music has cultivated an obvious image of rebellion. In its various guises, from the protest songs of Bob Dylan and the anarchic punk of the Sex Pistols to the defiant anthems of Dee Snider’s Twisted Sister, and the irreverent social commentary of Frank Zappa, it has frequently challenged social conventions, religious authority, and prevailing moral principles.

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Imagine that you’re in a quiet chapel and trying to pray before the tabernacle. But in the sanctuary, staring at you, is someone else. That person is also, at least nominally, trying to pray. It is easy to imagine that this mutual posture is not conducive to the most productive kind of prayer. Yet, this is increasingly how we orient our highest form of worship, with neglect for the impact on the…

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As far as controversies in the classroom go, the story of British teacher Anita Meston was relatively tame. She was giving a lesson on the “Allied bombing of Dresden during World War II,” which led to a discussion about the morality of war and the current conflict in the Holy Land. She was then asked if she supported abortion and responded that she was a pro-life Christian and knew many women who…

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Reading Church history is about an education in complexity. Take, for instance, the history of the Arian heresy in the fourth century. The Church in the fourth century was certainly a “synodal Church,” a phrase that has become a code word for some. The examples of the synods following the Nicene Council are worth looking at in terms of the newly discovered concept of “synodality.

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The past few months have been exciting ones in France, and indeed throughout Europe. This current chapter may be said to have begun at the end of July, when 50,000 to over 70,000 mostly Moroccan migrants crossed the border into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta via swimming or the border facilities. This was set off by a previous ruling of the Spanish Supreme Court in June 2026…

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