Father Roger J. Landry, a priest of the Diocese of Fall River, is national chaplain for Catholic Voices USA. COMMENTARY: To pray in Jesus’ name is to do more than finish our prayers by saying “through Christ our Lord.” It means to pray in communion with the person of Jesus, to turn to the Father together with the Son. One of the fruits of the Year of St. Joseph just concluded was the opportunity to enter into his contemplative, hardworking silence and to ponder how the only word Scripture records him saying is the name of Jesus, pronounced eight days …
Category: Current Issues
State Pro-Life Laws of 2021
Register correspondent Matt McDonald is the editor of the New Boston Post. A comprehensive list of all pro-life legislation passed in 2021 and what states might be working on in this New Year. Editor’s Note: The following list of recent and forthcoming abortion-related and life-related activity in the 50 states was compiled with information provided by Ingrid Duran, director of state legislation for the National Right to Life Committee, supplemented by the text of bills and by news reports. Alabama The state’s Human Life Protection Act, enacted in May 2019, is awaiting action in the federal courts. It would ban abortions …
Gary Cooper, Ernest Hemingway, and Our Lady of Fatima
K.V. Turley is the Register’s U.K. correspondent. He writes from London. “In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences” — Pope St. John Paul II On May 13, 1981, in St. Peter’s Square, an assassin’s bullet aimed at the heart of Pope John Paul II was mysteriously diverted. The Pope would later note of this moment and the connection he perceived with the apparitions at Fatima: “In the designs of Providence, there are no mere coincidences.” On May 13, 1961, 50 years after the first Fatima apparition, Catholic convert Gary Cooper was about to die. Pope Pius XII, …
Did the Church Change the Name of Confession?
Mr. Shaun McAfee, O.P. is the author of Reform Yourself! and other books and is the founder and editor of EpicPew.com and contributes to many online Catholic resources. He holds a Masters in Dogmatic Theology from Holy Apostles College and Seminary. Shaun has made his temporary profession as a Lay Dominican and temporarily lives in Italy. “The forgiveness of sins committed after Baptism is conferred by a particular sacrament called the sacrament of conversion, confession, penance, or reconciliation.” (CCC 1486) When I entered the Catholic Church some years ago, I recall someone in RCIA saying that the focus on Confession had shifted in …
Rowling cancelled by UK school; replaced by conservative, traditional Catholic
It’s not evident that the students at Trinity Church of England Primary School know much about Mary Seacole, a woman known for her faith, patriotism, devotion to the Britain Empire, and commitment to free enterprise. It’s a familiar story: a school in Britain has changed the name of one of its houses. The school—apparently after discussions with pupils (aged 5-11 years)—decided to drop the former patron of the house, a popular children’s novelist recently denounced for failing to accept the current support for “trans-sexuality”, and for stating that women should be called women. At the same time, the school has also—again …
In the matter of Abp Aupetit, Pope Francis sacrifices truth to political expediency
Christopher R. Altieri is a journalist, editor, and author of three books, including Reading the News Without Losing Your Faith (Catholic Truth Society, 2021). He is contributing editor to Catholic World Report. If you’re wondering why the Church seems to be making such halting progress in dealing with abuse, a fair surmise could be that it’s because the head man doesn’t think sexual sins by clergy are all that serious. So, how bad is l’Affaire Aupetit? It depends on how you look at it. From a PR standpoint, it is going to be a rough few days in the papers, maybe a rough few weeks. …
From Garmisch-Partenkirchen 1936 to Beijing 2022
George Weigel is Distinguished Senior Fellow of Washington’s Ethics and Public Policy Center, where he holds the William E. Simon Chair in Catholic Studies. He is the author of over twenty books, including Witness to Hope: The Biography of Pope John Paul II (1999), The End and the Beginning: Pope John Paul II—The Victory of Freedom, the Last Years, the Legacy (2010), and The Irony of Modern Catholic History: How the Church Rediscovered Itself and Challenged the Modern World to Reform. His most recent books are The Next Pope: The Office of Peter and a Church in Mission (2020), and Not Forgotten: Elegies for, and Reminiscences of, a Diverse …
The Immaculate Conception Revisited
Dr. Leroy Huizenga is Administrative Chair of Arts and Letters and Professor of Theology at the University of Mary in Bismarck, N.D. Dr. Huizenga has a B.A. in Religion from Jamestown College (N.D.), a Master of Divinity from Princeton Theological Seminary, and a Ph.D. in New Testament from Duke University. During his doctoral studies, he received a Fulbright Grant to study and teach at Johann Wolfgang Goethe-Universität in Frankfurt, Germany. After teaching at Wheaton College (Ill.) for five years, Dr. Huizenga was reconciled with the Catholic Church at the Easter Vigil of 2011. Dr. Huizenga is the author of The New Isaac: …
The Personhood of the Fetus
Raymond B. Marcin is a Professor of Law Emeritus at The Catholic University of America School of Law. He has taught Constitutional Law for four decades and has co-authored The American Constitutional Order: History, Cases, and Philosophy (with Kmiec, Presser, and Eastman), 3rd ed. (Charlottesville, VA: LexisNexis, 2009). All but ignored in the Dobbs arguments was the issue of whether the living, developing, and growing human child in the womb of her mother has the right to life guaranteed to persons in the text of the Constitution as well as in the text of the Declaration of Independence. In the arguments before the United States Supreme Court in Dobbs …
‘The Music of Christendom’: Why the World Should Thank the Church for ‘Classical’ Compositions
By Trent Beattie In addition to assembling Finding True Happiness, Trent Beattie is the author of Scruples and Sainthood and the editor for Saint Alphonsus Liguori for Every Day. He lives in Seattle, Washington. The Music of Christendom A History By Susan Treacy Ignatius Press/Augustine Institute, 2021 235 pages, $16.95 To order: ignatius.com It would probably come as a shock to many people today, but the Gregorian chant is the foundational music of the Western world. Although monophonic, this type of music is anything but monotonous. There is variety in the modes of chants themselves and in the various forms of music that have developed from …