John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is the former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. He is especially interested in moral theology and the thought of John Paul II The Guns of Navarone is the epic adventure of six Allied saboteurs dispatched to knock out two large caliber German guns positioned within a natural rock fortress on the fictional Greek island of Navarone. The mission is undertaken so that British warships can safely pass the island to rescue British troops stranded on a neighboring island, Kheros (also fictional). The movie, based on the Alistair …
Category: Current Issues
How might the pandemic affect religious practice? A look at the current data
Filip Mazurczak is a journalist, translator, and historian. His writing has appeared in the National Catholic Register, First Things, Tygodnik Powszechny, and other publications. There is much pessimism across the West about the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on religious practice. Luxembourg’s Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, for example, has grimly predicted that the disruption of normal religious life may have accelerated the secularization of Europe by a decade. If this proves true for Europe, the same phenomena will likely occur, in some way and to some degree, in North America, Australia, and other outposts of Western culture. A close look at some sociological research from …
Five reasons to read Dei Verbum—and five things you’ll learn in doing so
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 Church Should Not Return to “Normal”
By Thomas Griffin Thomas Griffin teaches apologetics in the religion department at a Catholic high school on Long Island. Read more at www.EmptyTombProject.org. The decline of the Catholic Church in America was happening rapidly before COVID-19. Returning to the methods that produced the radical decline in Sunday Mass attendance along with the low numbers of marriages, baptisms, catechumens, and overall members practicing their faith would be both ignorant and fatal. What we need now is a shift that runs away from the patterns of the previous decades and runs toward the apostolic fervor of the early Church. Now that COVID-19 restrictions …
It’s Time to Brainwash Our Children
By Philip Martin Philip J. Martin is a graduate of both Auburn University and the Franciscan University of Steubenville and is currently residing in beautiful Daphne, AL with his family. He is an award-winning fiction author and has published numerous pieces of non-fiction, fiction, and poetry in various publications. I’ll never forget the look in that engineer’s eyes when he interrupted the professor. “Wow,” he exclaimed, “I get it, I get it!” I know what he was feeling because I felt it too. It was as if the final nail in a bridge between islands in my mind had been hammered …
When Violence Shapes Public Policy
By Msgr. Richard C. Antall Monsignor Antall is pastor of Holy Name Parish in the Diocese of Cleveland. He is the author of The Wedding, (Lambing Press, 2019). It seems like rioting (or the threat thereof) has become a form of participatory democracy. Nothing reveals the disintegration of authority and the common good so much in our society as the more and more frequent resort to violence. That this is particularly connected to police and the use of force, undue or otherwise, is a political problem with philosophical implications. Hannah Arendt, the German-Jewish-American philosopher who wrote much about social issues, published a book …
The Church of England’s Imminent Death Brings Opportunities
By David Larson David Larson is an editor and/or writer for a number of publications and has a master’s in theological studies from Spring Hill College. He lives in North Carolina with his wife and daughter. The Church of England is crumbling so quickly it may barely reach its 500th birthday, in 2034. This is not just my opinion—it’s the opinion of the church itself, which in the United States is known as the Episcopal Church and in Canada and elsewhere is typically known as the Anglican Church. Here in the U.S., the Episcopal Church’s numbers are rapidly spiraling to zero. …
The Battle Against Satan: A Review
By Brian Welter Brian Welter has degrees in history, theology, and (soon) education. He is a Canadian who teaches in Taiwan. His interests include history, philosophy, and critical thinking. Experienced exorcist Fr. Vincent Lampert provides pastoral, theological, spiritual, and biblical insights into the nature and purpose of the Rite of Exorcism. He bases the discussion on his own experience and on the biblical witness, mostly from the Gospel of Mark. The Gospel depicts the reality of evil during the New Testament era and how Jesus triumphantly confronted it. The New Testament world was infested with demons. While Lampert evaluates at length …
Do No Harm. . .To Freedom?
By Brady Stiller Brady Stiller is a Fellow at the Christ Medicus Foundation (CMF). He studied Biological Sciences and Theology at the University of Notre Dame, and he is currently pursuing a Master of Nonprofit Administration degree from the same institution. During this 117th Congressional Session, certain Members of Congress reintroduced the “Equality Act” (H.R. 5, S. 393), which would, among other provisions, amend the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to prohibit discrimination on the basis of “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” Adoption of this bill would release one of the final restraints on abuse in health care, which from ancient times has …
Poking Holes in the Koran
By Pio Amalraj Pio Amalraj is a husband and father of three. He loves the Traditional Latin Mass and works in the IT industry as a Google Cloud Platform Something momentous has happened recently that has gone under the radar for most Christians. While the pandemic raged across the globe and a U.S. Presidential election turned into political turmoil, a wall that stood as an impenetrable fortress against the Christian Faith for 1400 years was breached. The very platform of the Tech giants, one that promotes an environment hostile to Christian beliefs and stifles opposing Christian voices, has been instrumental for this …