By Regis Nicoll Regis Nicoll is a retired nuclear engineer and a fellow of the Colson Center who writes commentary on faith and culture. His new book is titled Why There Is a God: And Why It Matters. Dear Swillpit, The sure way to Hell is by a series of incremental adjustments so small, and seemingly innocuous, that earthlings never notice they are woefully off course until they find themselves aboard Charon’s skiff heading for the opposite shore. A believer who turns against our Adversary in a moment of anger or doubt is just as likely to turn back when …
Author: Manuel Xavier
Why Women Don’t Need to Preach at Mass
On the feast day of St. Mary Magdalene, an online debate broke out amongst Catholics about women giving homilies. This stemmed from a tweet by Jesuit priest Father James Martin who wrote, in part: “It is stupefying to me that women cannot preach at Mass.” The tweet linked to an America magazine article written by a woman who used to preach at Mass before restrictions were enforced. The Church, according to canon law, teaches that “the diocesan bishop may never dispense from the norm, which reserves the homily to the sacred ministers.” As a Catholic woman, albeit not standing behind …
St. Michael’s Miraculous
How The Archangel Powerfully Dedicated His Own Basilica St. Michael the Archangel miraculously appeared four times in the following story, therefore dedicating his own basilica, the Sanctuary of San Michele Arcangelo. St. Michael’s First Apparition Between the third and eighth centuries, legend says that while a wealthy man named Gargano tended his animals, one of his bulls escaped and wandered off alone. Angered at finding the bull grazing by himself in front of a cave, he shot a poisoned arrow at it. The arrow then turned around and hit him! Gargano was so disturbed that he told the bishop about his …
U.S. Bishops Approve the Pope’s Capital Punishment Ban
Sæva indignatio. Few writers in the history of English letters could express “savage indignation” at human folly as did Jonathan Swift who wrote those words for his own epitaph. Our times give ample opportunity to empathize with him, and that is never more so than when clerics get together in large numbers. Bishops have many daunting responsibilities and, if they are reasonable, they are not fleet of foot to beat a path to synods and conferences and plenary sessions and other impositions on their august office. Their patience in such meetings is exemplary, and so lesser souls should be patient …
Is American Law Still Concerned with Justice?
Recent news stories make one wonder if our legal system is abandoning our traditional Anglo-American principles of justice and instead becoming increasingly unreasonable, unprincipled, and allowing itself to become a tool for furthering political bias, revenge-seeking, and “making examples.” We can start off with the spectacle of the two-year-long investigation of the 2016 Trump presidential campaign for something that is not even a crime: collusion (supposedly with Russia to influence the election). The spectacle of various people being charged with questionable “process crimes”—such as lying to investigators—and the procuring of convictions via plea bargains as a result of threats and …
Bastille Day and Other Convenient Myths
Centenarians are not as rare as they used to be and one can profit from their memories. In California, I spoke with a woman who had traveled there from Missouri in a covered wagon. I visited another woman in a retirement home who was the first to hear her English professor at Wellesley College, Katherine Lee Bates, read a poem she had written on her summer vacation in Colorado: “America the Beautiful.” These good women were blessed with active minds, and their memories were acute. Because “God is in the details,” what they considered commonplace was most revealing: The Missouri …
The Political Left is Running Sports
As expected, the U.S. Women’s National Team won the Women’s World Cup. As also expected, members of the women’s team, led by chief spokeswoman Megan Rapinoe, were known as much for their politics as for their play. Rapinoe got it going with her comment that she wouldn’t visit the “f–ing” White House if she was invited, which was seconded and thirded by players Alex Morgan and Ali Krieger. Rapinoe, who is openly gay, has also refused to sing the national anthem. Then there is the claim that the women’s team is paid less than the men’s team. It turns out, …
How to “Dialogue” Truthfully on Gender Ideology
If the Church invites dialogue about gender ideology and homosexuality, does this signal a possible compromise of Catholic doctrine? This question lies at the heart of the controversy over the Vatican Congregation for Catholic Education’s recent document, “Male and Female He Created Them”: Towards a Path of Dialogue on the Question of Gender Theory in Education. Overall it’s a valuable, courageous, and necessary statement to Catholic educators, but there are some serious concerns which I will briefly summarize. As for the debate that has gained the most attention—about the appropriateness of “dialogue” on gender ideology—the proposal is probably much less …
Bishop Athanasius Schneider Videos
Bishop Athanasius (Anton) Schneider is the author of two books: Dominus Est – It is the Lord!, and Propter Sanctam Ecclesiam Suam (not yet available in English.) He was born of German parents on 7 April 1961 in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union, where his family received the pastoral care of Fr. Oleksa Zaryckyj, later to become a beatified martyr for the faith. Bishop Schneider himself received his first holy communion in secret, since the practice of the faith was outlawed under the communist regime. In 1973, he left with his family for Germany. He later joined the …
Bishop Schneider: The Christian Faith Is the Only Valid and the Only God-Willed Religion
Bishop Athanasius (Anton) Schneider is the author of two books: Dominus Est – It is the Lord!, and Propter Sanctam Ecclesiam Suam (not yet available in English.) He was born of German parents on 7 April 1961 in Tokmok, Kirghiz SSR in the Soviet Union, where his family received the pastoral care of Fr. Oleksa Zaryckyj, later to become a beatified martyr for the faith. Bishop Schneider himself received his first holy communion in secret, since the practice of the faith was outlawed under the communist regime. In 1973, he left with his family for Germany. He later joined the …