By Randall Smith. I heard a story recently from a Catholic father who invited his atheist friend to dinner with his family. Before dinner, the family always says a prayer. After dinner, the man's atheist friend complained that they had prayed while he was there. I had to laugh because I begin my classes with a prayer, and what I tell my non-Christi…

By Robert Royal. This is a red-letter day for the United States of America. We come to the end of a deeply divided, often bad-tempered - someone might even say venomous - national contest. The Constitutional order held, the vote was clear, and today there will be yet another peaceful transfer of power between two parties, despite little love for on…

By Dominic V. Cassella. I traveled to England this summer to speak at the Oxford Patristics Conference. While I was there, I had time to make two long-desired pilgrimages. The first pilgrimage came in a rush, immediately after the plane landed at Heathrow Airport. My flight had been delayed two hours, and I narrowly made my appointment at the Tower…

By George J. Marlin. When Donald Trump lost the closely contested 2020 election to Joe Biden, 51 percent of Catholics supported him, as did 61 percent of Evangelicals, and 35 percent of Jewish voters. In 2024, Trump received a majority of the national vote thanks to the support of 58 percent of Catholics, 68 percent of Evangelicals, and 39 percent …

By Francis X. Maier. Back in my years as a religion news editor (1978-93), one of my self-imposed penances was reading The Nation. A taste for diversity, we're told, is a good thing. And at the time, the magazine was remarkably "diverse," at least in its own peculiar way. It had a wide variety of outrage from the bitter Left, curated by a tribe of …

By Michael Pakaluk. But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, January 16th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy to head the Archdioces…

By Casey Chalk. When we think of the doctors of the Church - those great saints especially recognized for their contributions to Catholic theology or doctrine - we think of figures such as St. Augustine and his prolific theological output; St. Thomas and his foundational Summa Theologiae; or the sophisticated mysticism of St. Teresa of Avila. Most …

By Brad Miner. Before he leaves office, Joe Biden will not be meeting with Pope Francis as planned. The Los Angeles wildfires put an end to that - or so we're told. But the original plan got me curious about such meetings and what they mean. It's a complex but, at least sometimes, significant history. If you were to do an Internet search, you'd lik…

By Auguste Meyrat. The fine-tuning argument for God, which details how a multitude of physical variables come together to enable human existence, is among the strongest an apologist can make from the facts of science. The odds of such a universe arising randomly are infinitesimal and thus strongly point to an omniscient and omnipotent Intelligence.…

By Christian Browne. The first jubilee was the result of popular piety that found papal approbation. In 1299, word spread across Europe that the pilgrims to St. Peter's tomb would receive a plenary indulgence with the dawn of the new century. Responding to the growing crowds in the Eternal City, on February 22, 1300, Boniface the eighth issued a Pa…

By Daniel Gallagher. The year 1976 was a good one to be a six-year-old boy from Pittsburgh. I wasn't too young to realize that Watergate had shaken our confidence in Washington and that inflation was pinching our pocketbooks, but I was old enough to celebrate the bicentennial with great pride. Snug in my Steelers helmet, I sped around the neighborh…

by David Warren. In both Canada and the United States, we have Catholic "statesmen" (I use the term almost facetiously) retiring after many years of "service" (ditto). They are Mr. Justin Trudeau, up here in the Great White North, and Mr. Joe Biden, down there in the. . .south. Both became extremely unpopular, and "good riddance" has been expressed…

By Stephen P. White. But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, January 9th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy to head the Archdioces…

By Robert Royal. But first a note: Be sure to tune in tomorrow - Thursday, January 9th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy to head the Archdiocese o…

By Randall Smith. Experience suggests, and multiple studies show, that people don't act as ethically as they think they will. It is easier to imagine being just and heroic than to be just and heroic. But sometimes the issue isn't a lack of character, it's a skewing of our vision of things. Josef Pieper, in his masterly book The Four Cardinal Virtue…

By John M. Grondelski. In America, the secular "holiday season" ended sometime around 4 am on January 1, as the last New Year's revelers made their way home for a long winter's nap. Most likely before the 12 days of Christmas are out, most Christmas trees will be gone as well. January 6 will, this year for several reasons, be less often remembered …

By Fr. Benedict Kiely. Long before the ancient and much-needed credal formulas, defining the parameters of our basic beliefs, like the great Councils of Ephesus and of Nicaea, the 1700th anniversary of which we will celebrate in 2025, the very first creed was uttered during the drama of the Easter days. When the two disciples who encountered the Ri…

By Michael Pakaluk. "Hark the herald angels sing. . . .Joyful, all ye nations rise, Join the triumph of the skies." We have sung this hymn many times over the last several days. But I wonder about those angels in the skies. Probably you picture them as appearing among the stars, like the Milky Way. But what does Luke actually say? He says that the …

By Francis X. Maier. In our house, we cling to the Christmas season like survivors of a torpedoed steamer. The tree stays up until it's a fire hazard. The carols play through the Baptism of the Lord, with an encore or two until Candlemas. We don't retire the crèche until Presentation of the Lord. Christmas anchors our year. One might reasonably ask…

By Fr. Elias Carr, Can. Reg. Remember your first day in a new school or at a new job? The excitement of embarking on a new adventure, but the fear of wondering: Will I make friends? What will people be like? Will I fit in? In his brilliant book, Wanting, Luke Burgis coins the term "Freshmanistan" to capture the everyday experience. Burgis connects …

But first: A Blessèd New Year to All! Now for today's column, by St. Augustine of Hippo: We see, beloved Brethren, that you have come together to-day as for a feast and that for this day you have gathered here in greater numbers than usual. We urge you to remember what you sang a moment ago; otherwise it will only mean that your tongue made some no…

By Msgr. Charles Fink. The recent kerfuffle over kneeling/not kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament brought back to me memories of a Church history professor I had in the seminary. He was renowned for his enormous library and his encyclopedic knowledge. Commenting on the redistricting scheme of the French revolutionaries, who decided that a sim…

By Brad Miner. I've often written here about painting. Now, I want to write about music, a subject about which I've no expertise, although I do have 6,261 tracks on my iPhone. Act one of Noël Coward's "intimate" comedy, Private Lives, begins with an off-stage orchestra playing some innocuous tune, to which it "returns persistently," and occasions t…

By Father Jerry J. Pokorsky. The Catholic calendar carries this noteworthy designation on various dates: "Holy Day of Obligation." The Church requires us to attend Mass in order to honor the Third Commandment. Those of us present at Mass should comply with a sense of duty. A properly directed sense of duty is holy and good. But salvation does not c…

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza. It was one year in a single day. On 11th May, the year 2024 unfolded for American Catholics. In the space of a few hours, two commencement addresses were delivered: Jonathan Roumie at The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, and Harrison Butker at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas. Much of what marked …