Shows / The Catholic Thing
The Catholic Thing
The Catholic Thing is a daily column rooted in the richest cultural tradition in the world, i.e., the concrete historical reality of Catholicism.
Episodes
The Catholic ThingA Blindspot in Catholic Social Teaching: Generational Theft
By Michael Pakaluk Search the Catechism, the Compendium of Catholic Social Doctrine, indeed the entire Vatican website – search all you want – for teaching…
The Catholic ThingSome Thoughts on Stoner Alley
By Francis X. Maier One of my favorite, if cynical, figures from Reformation history and Europe's Wars of Religion is Henri de Bourbon. Raised as a committed…
The Catholic ThingDefending the Social Kingship of Christ
By Kristen Ziccarelli There are few things more foreign to the modern imagination than the idea of a Christian king. We are accustomed to separating the sacred…
The Catholic ThingSynodality Will Kill Catholicism
By Brad Miner The Catholic Church has always distinguished itself from other Christian bodies by its claim to possess, and be bound by, a deposit of faith…
The Catholic ThingGood Questions
By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Soon-to-be-Blessed Fulton Sheen once quipped, "The questions of God are more satisfying than the answers of man." (That's a variation on…
The Catholic ThingRemembering Ratzinger at Rimini
By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza Pope Leo XIV is traveling to Rimini today for the annual cultural festival organized by Communion and Liberation (CL). Few use its…
The Catholic ThingBeauty: A True Human Need
By Joseph R. Wood As I write, on the day celebrated by some Orthodox as the feast of the Transfiguration on the Julian calendar, I've had several experiences…
The Catholic ThingStar Gazing
By Stephen P. White But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight – Thursday, August 20 at 8 PM Eastern – to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The…
The Catholic ThingRestless and at Home in America
By Robert Royal We recently reached the 250th anniversary (a quarter-millennium) of the dominant nation and culture of our time – and of one of the greatest…
The Catholic ThingSelling Radical 'Synodality' as 'Social Prophecy' If synodality is "not a programme needing to be implemented" why does the Synod Secretariat's website present it as a programme needing to be implemented? In 2028 the Synod Secretariat will host an Ecclesial Assembly. If Synodality is "not a project with a 2028 deadline," does that mean that the Ecclesial Assembly is simply the first of an endless series of Ecclesial Assemblies? If synodality is "not one more meeting", why are any more meetings being scheduled? What is the "deep identity of the Church"? Was this identity unknown until synodality was invented by Pope Francis? Who identified this deep identity and how did they do so? What is the difference between being "another Church" and "being a Church in a different way"? What does "being the Church in a different way" mean? Different from what? What do "clericalism, hierarchicalism and institutional self-sufficiency" mean? What is clericalism and who are the clericalists? What in the world is hierarchicalism? Isn't the Catholic Church hierarchical by nature, which means that it is governed by ordained hierarchs? Does God not give to the Church, the Mystical Body of Christ, what is sufficient to carry out her mission to preach the Gospel, to sanctify mankind through the administration of the sacraments and to provide shepherds for the wise governance of the flock of Christ? What is the Church lacking and who can supply that need? Why is it posited that the Church at present lacks "a culture of listening, co-responsibility, discernment and genuine exchange"? What does co-responsibility mean? Does it mean that decision making by the hierarchy alone must be put aside in favor of co-decision making in which the hierarchy and the laity together govern the Church? What is social prophecy? Who engages in such prophecy? Who decides that it is true prophecy and not false prophecy, namely someone's opinion wrongly put forth as God's will? What is the grammar of peace? Does peace have a grammar?
By Fr. Gerald E. Murray The recent annual Assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious received a video message from Pope Leo XIV, in which he…
The Catholic Thing'I Want to Believe'
By Randall Smith I sometimes hear people say something like this: "I want to believe, but I just can't," or "I would like to believe, but I just don't." I…
The Catholic ThingReligious Life is the Higher Calling
By David G Bonagura, Jr. A wave of egalitarianism, swelling for over two centuries, has broken over every corner of the West, including the Church. In its…
- The Catholic Thing
The Assumption: A Feast of Doctrinal Development
By Michael Pakaluk Why debate what the development of doctrine looked like in distant eras of Church history when we have three instances in front of us, two…
The Catholic ThingIn Praise of Notre Dame's John Cavadini
By Christopher Kaczor Who is Notre Dame's MVP? I don't mean the Most Valuable Player on the football team. I mean the Most Valuable Professor on the faculty…
The Catholic ThingThe Choices We Should Make
By John M. Grondelski The Institute for Family Studies just released "The Demographic Dead End: Without Action, American Population Will Soon Decline," the…
The Catholic ThingThe Powerlessness of Power
By Robert Royal I've been in Central Europe for the past few weeks for two educational projects, one that will celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary in 2026…
The Catholic ThingWhat Is Beautiful? What Is Ugly?
By Brad Miner In the Mile End Road, opposite to the London Hospital, there was . . . a vacant greengrocer's which was to let. The whole of the front of the…
The Catholic ThingHow to be a Dhimmi
By Francis X. Maier In late July, some 60,000 migrants surged into the Spanish North African enclave of Ceuta from Morocco. The migrants were mainly young…
The Catholic ThingCathedrals Old and New
By K.E. Colombini On a trip back home to Southern California, I had the opportunity to visit the church of my baptism, my "mother church," as they say. When I…
The Catholic ThingVouchers and Vaccines
By Daniel Guernsey The state of Florida is threatening to pull over a billion dollars of school choice funds from Catholic schools because those schools refuse…
The Catholic ThingMarriage Advice
By Stephen P. White Next week, my wife and I will celebrate our 20th anniversary. We were just out of high school when we first met – barely a year older than…
The Catholic ThingThe Transfiguration: Why Christ Gave His Disciples Beauty
By Kristen Ziccarelli Today, August 6, the Feast of the Transfiguration, commemorates one of the most mysterious moments in Christ's public ministry. Ascending…
The Catholic ThingFreedom from (Airline) Religion
By Casey Chalk Earlier this month, Orlando-based evangelist and social media influencer Whitney Lynn posted a video of herself offering a brief preaching…
The Catholic ThingLead Us Not Into Temptation
By Randall Smith There was a bit of a kerfuffle a few years back over the phrase in the Our Father: "Lead us not into temptation." It was suggested that the…
The Catholic ThingThe Way Not Taken
By Robert Royal This is the first summer in quite a while that circumstances have prevented me from taking a walking pilgrimage, usually something like the…
The Catholic ThingVictory Through Suffering
By Fr. Thomas Kuffel Nike, the shoe company, not the ancient Greek goddess, famously said, "Just Do It." But why is the company called "Nike," and what does…
The Catholic ThingWhat is a Cat?
By Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg When I ask my classes, "What is a cat?" inevitably the answer is, "Whatever someone says it is." Not so long ago, every seventh…
The Catholic ThingAn EZ Guide to Modern Politics
By Francis X. Maier Yes, alas, it's another election year. You know what that means. The free-fire zone, formerly known as our public square, demands that we…
The Catholic ThingThat Old-Time Religion
By Michael Pakaluk I wonder if a certain greater sobriety is not asked of us as regards our use of social media. And if so, who is going to tell us so? So much…
The Catholic ThingA Royal Saint for Every Age
By Amy Fahey Norwegian soccer star Erling Haaland recently made news not for his playing or pseudo-Viking antics, but for his record-breaking purchase of a…
The Catholic Thing'Joan of Arc': My Favorite Painting
By Brad Miner Many readers know of my passion for art, especially painting. I'm particularly fond of the work of the great Catholic artists Caravaggio, Rubens…
The Catholic ThingMy Hope for Christian Europe
By Kristen Ziccarelli French existentialist Gabriel Marcel called hope "the stuff of which the soul is made." Dante marked the entrance to Hell by its absence…
The Catholic ThingFound and Finding, Bought and Buying
By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Two of the parables set before us today are traditionally understood as lessons in the cost of discipleship. The treasure buried in the…
The Catholic ThingPolish Prelates: Four Cardinals Form a Pope
By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza Kraków, Poland – Poland is a nation that has endured by memory, a land therefore where anniversaries are marked with extra care…
The Catholic ThingHeading for the Hills
By Joseph R. Wood Recently, I read an author's claim that "as Christians we can't simply ignore politics. We're supposed to be leaven in the world. So we can't…
The Catholic ThingKids These Days
By Stephen P. White I'm old enough now to be the sort of person who will occasionally observe, in all apparent earnestness, that being around young people…
The Catholic ThingThe Problem of Evil and the Firmness of Faith
By David G Bonagura, Jr. I was listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast when these lines came up from 2 Chronicles 28:3: "[King Ahaz] burned incense in the…
The Catholic ThingNo Salvation Outside the Church
By Randall Smith How many of these can you identify? Marcionites, Montanists, Sabellians, Donatists, Quartodecimans, Pneumatomachians, Apollonarians…
The Catholic ThingAn 'Odyssey' for Our Time
By Robert Royal I don't often comment on films or – truth be told – usually care much about them. I leave that to those who do care and are much better at it…
The Catholic ThingOf the Ecclesial Crisis and Winter Bread
By David P. Deavel The excommunications issued to the six bishops involved in the Society of St. Pius X's consecrations are easy to defend. Pope Leo told the…
The Catholic Thing‘I Am Arthur, [Catholic] King of the Britons’
By Brad Miner In our current mood of skepticism and sense of superiority about our own ancestors, it's easy, almost obligatory, to mock their beliefs and…
The Catholic ThingThoughts from the Memory Hole
By Francis X. Maier Americans don't suffer from amnesia. We prefer it. Memory shapes who we are as individuals, a nation, and a culture. But we define…
The Catholic ThingFoolproof against Nothingness
By Michael Pakaluk But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight – Thursday, July 16 at 8 PM Eastern – to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The…
The Catholic ThingHard Lessons from a Priest Who Stayed in Gaza
By Auguste Meyrat In the interest of diplomacy and personal relations, it's normally a good idea to follow the adage, "If you can't say anything nice about…
The Catholic ThingThe Anthropological Unity of Magnifica Humanitas
By John M. Grondelski Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo XIV's inaugural encyclical, is largely understood by the public as addressing artificial intelligence. The…
The Catholic ThingThe TLM and the Four Last Things
By Robert Royal I recently attended the funeral of a young man who died tragically. It happened to be a solemn high Traditional Latin Mass, entirely licit and…
The Catholic ThingFocused on Eternity
By Fr. Benedict Kiely As a young man of around fourteen or fifteen, it was an amusement, late at night in my bedroom in England, gently to move the dial on the…
The Catholic ThingAmerican Heroism and Our Lady of Walsingham
By Joanna Bogle This summer, as in so many summers past, I will be making a pilgrimage to Walsingham. This Norfolk village is the home of England's national…
The Catholic ThingThe Bifurcated Brain
By David Warren One of the best ways to keep everybody angry, and thus to let us share in the modern experience, is to use words in a left-brained sort of way…
The Catholic ThingIn Praise of Imperfect Heroes
By Stephen P. White I am in Poland, as I am every July, for the Tertio Millennio Seminar, a three-week meeting on Catholic social teaching and the thought of…
The Catholic ThingThe SSPX and the French Revolution
By Msgr. Thomas G. Guarino As everyone knows by now, the ordination of bishops carried out by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) has resulted in the automatic…
The Catholic ThingPope Leo and Catholic Education
By Randall Smith Magnifica humanitas has been widely discussed for its approach to artificial intelligence. Pope Leo emphasizes the importance of the schools…
The Catholic ThingHillbilly with a Rosary
By Michael Pakaluk When J.D. Vance's memoir of his path back to Christianity, Communion: Finding My Way Back to Faith, is described at a high level of…
The Catholic ThingAmerica Must Not Become a Land of Hate
By Msgr. Charles Fink There are terrible injustices in our country. There are people in jail who don't belong there and people on the street who belong in…
The Catholic ThingFive for the Fourth
By Robert Royal, Brad Miner, Francis X. Maier, Michael Pakaluk and Joseph R. Wood In Magnifica humanitas, Pope Leo invokes the Biblical story of Nehemiah…
The Catholic ThingJefferson and the 4th of July
By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza In the early days of July 1826, Thomas Jefferson "marshalled his will toward the realization of one last mission: He wanted to…
The Catholic ThingSSPX: Schism and Excommunication
By Fr. Gerald E. Murray The canonically illegal consecration/ordination (the terms are interchangeable) of four new bishops by two Society of St. Pius X (SSPX)…
The Catholic ThingOur Hunger for the Right Things
By Francis X. Maier The historian Henry Adams once described politics as "the systematic organization of hatreds," and that's often where we seem to be in…
The Catholic ThingHuman Dignity and America's 250th
By Robert Royal But first a note from Robert Royal: In line with the column below, we call your attention to the series of brief commentaries on the Catechism…
The Catholic ThingIs the Church of England in a Death Spiral?
By Brad Miner The Anglo-American poet, T.S. Eliot (born in St. Louis), wrote "The Hollow Men" in 1925. The poem concludes with this haunting quatrain: This is…