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 ThingRemember, Remember the Fifth of November
By Michael Pakaluk After Bill Clinton's re-election, which he much lamented, Judge Bork wrote a famous essay on the martini ("How to Forget the Election")…
The Catholic ThingCardinal Cupich and the 'Seamless Garment'
By Richard A. Spinello The amorphous doctrine of the "consistent ethic of life" continues to inspire some Catholics while disturbing others. Cardinal Joseph…
The Catholic ThingForever Freedom Fighters
By Elizabeth Edwards Spalding As America goes to the voting booths, it is good to remember a heroic instance of resistance to tyrannical socialism. In 1956…
The Catholic Thing'Woe To Me If I Do Not Preach'
By Fr. Benedict Kiely I'm not sure whether Cardinal Jean-Paul Vesco, the Archbishop of Algiers, has read the satirical poem "Absolute and Abitofhell" by…
The Catholic ThingSapieha's Dinner and the Heavenly Banquet
By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza Given his decisive role in my priestly vocation, I pay particular attention to the anniversaries of St. John Paul the Great. We…
The Catholic ThingThe Georgia Martyrs: Dying for the Sanctity of Marriage
By Daniel B. Gallagher After two years of preaching the Gospel to the Guale people along the coast of modern-day Georgia, Friar Pedro de Corpa had much to be…
The Catholic ThingThe Children Who Have Seen It All
By John Melnikov There was a time not too long ago when coming into my classroom each day offered me the wonderful challenge of not only teaching my theology…
The Catholic ThingAs All Hallow's Eve Approaches
By Stephen P. White October is racing to a close and, as is often the case in the federal capital at this time of year, the weather has taken a turn for the…
The Catholic ThingElections, Conscience, and Catholics
By John M. Grondelski Many commentators identify the origin of politicians' (especially Catholic Democrats') "personally opposed but" approach to abortion as…
The Catholic ThingFacing a 'Pivotal Choice'
By Randall Smith At Mass the other day, the priest said, "Today, we face a pivotal choice." He was referring to the challenges of artificial intelligence. AI…
The Catholic ThingFollowing the Science
By Robert Royal Surveys of young people show that many lose their faith because they believe religion has been disproved by science. Among many other factors…
The Catholic ThingThree Loves
By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Well, he got more than he bargained for. In today's Gospel (Matthew 22:34-40), all the scholar of the law wanted was a Gotcha! moment by…
The Catholic ThingBring Back the Betrothal
By K.E. Colombini Thanks to the wisdom of Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, Catholics who came of age after the Second Vatican Council have gotten a taste…
The Catholic ThingO, Bless My Soul
By Brad Miner In 2019, I wrote here that, "When I was a 4-year-old, I sat on the fire escape of our apartment and thought: 'What if there were nothing?' (But…
The Catholic ThingReading Alito Backwards
By Michael Pakaluk I read Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's So Ordered: An Originalist's View of the Constitution, the Court, and Our Country backwards…
The Catholic ThingAI Is a Two-Edged Sword
By Francis X. Maier Readers with a taste for history may remember the story of Millennium Challenge 2002 (MC02). For those who don't, it was a high-end…
The Catholic ThingMen without Minds
By Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg Few criticisms of modern education have aged as well as C.S. Lewis's 1943 The Abolition of Man. In "Men without Chests," Lewis…
The Catholic ThingAs the World Burns
By Robert Royal Today is the Feast of the North American Martyrs, a group of French Jesuits and religious – Jean de Brébeuf, Isaac Jogues, Jean de Lalande…
The Catholic ThingThe God-Caesar Relationship
By John M. Grondelski This Sunday's Gospel showcases one of those teachings people can always quote and think they understand what Jesus meant – until you talk…
The Catholic ThingIt's Time for an Anti-Pornography Crusade
By Mary Eberstadt Cornell University is my alma mater. I spent four years there in a scholarship house known widely as a redoubt of nerds. As it happened…
The Catholic ThingFrom Secular Disorder to Catholic Order
By David G Bonagura, Jr. We have come to an incredible cultural moment. The seemingly unstoppable drumbeat for unlimited progress that has long characterized…
The Catholic ThingSanctity is Always Timely
By Stephen P. White The death of Pope Paul VI on August 6, 1978 – the Feast of the Transfiguration – was not a great surprise. The pope had been in poor and…
The Catholic ThingHow to Kill the Terrorist
By Brad Miner On December 3rd, Nidal Mailk Hasan will be executed by a firing squad. This will take place at the site of his crimes, the Ft. Hood U.S. Army…
The Catholic ThingLying and "the Right to the Truth"
By Randall Smith I was reading the work of a modern, progressive moral theologian the other day. And he gave what has become a disturbingly common response to…
The Catholic ThingColumbus, Marco Rubio, and the Nations
By Robert Royal I wouldn't have taken a more than average interest in Christopher Columbus if ill-informed and sometimes ill-intentioned people hadn't made it…
The Catholic ThingAwake the Dawn
By Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, OFM, Cap. Psalm 57:8 declares: "Awake, my soul, Awake O harp and lyre! I will awake the dawn!" This is a poetic verse, but does it…
The Catholic ThingThe Vatican Should Reaffirm the Culture of Life
By Alden Abbott The Catholic bishops of Arlington and Richmond, Michael Burbidge and Barry Knestout, urged Virginians to reject Ballot Question 1 next month, a…
The Catholic ThingArmenia and the Task of Remembering
By Francis X. Maier 'One death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.' It's a line typically attributed to Josef Stalin, an accomplished veteran of…
The Catholic ThingNewman and the Rosary
By Michael Pakaluk Many Protestants who become Catholics pass through three stages in their Marian devotion. They begin by thinking the Rosary is not something…
The Catholic ThingLepanto: 455 Years Later
By Kristen Ziccarelli "On October 7, AD 1571, the fleet of the Holy League under the command of one Don Juan de Austria defeated the Turkish fleet in the Gulf…
The Catholic ThingThe Catholic Knight Who Stopped Slavery in West Africa
By Joanna Bogle The Catholic cemetery at Mortlake in South West London has an agreeably rural feel, and is worth a visit: it's about 20 minutes from Waterloo…
The Catholic ThingPope Leo's Unfinished French Revolution
By Robert Royal The large crowds that turned out for Pope Leo everywhere in France surprised everyone – not least, sad to say, the French bishops. Let's hope…
The Catholic ThingThe Pope, Hemingway, and 'Moi' in Paris
By Brad Miner Late last year, my wife began carefully, meticulously planning a week-long trip to Paris for the whole family. She did so, as she noted to the…
The Catholic Thing'The God Who Gives Joy to My Youth'
By Rev. Peter M.J. Stravinskas I am writing within the octave of the beatification of Fulton J. Sheen, and find myself still basking in the glow of that…
The Catholic ThingPascal on the Good Use of Illness
By Casey Chalk The man was at the top of his game. His professional career was at full throttle, moving from one success to another. Yet he was also admired…
The Catholic ThingThe Forest and the Trees
By Stephen P. White In his new book, A Catholic Guide to Being Human, Dr. John Grabowski offers a reminder that the term "person" is more freighted with…
The Catholic ThingA Parable of the Desert War
By H.W. Crocker III Rod Dreher is hard at work on a book about "Weimar America." The disquieting trends that trouble Dreher – rising anti-Semitism and social…
The Catholic ThingA Modest Proposal for a Grand Ecumenical Gesture
By Randall Smith In Homer's Odyssey, when Odysseus returns to Ithaca, disguised as a poor wanderer, he is given food and shelter by the swineherd, Eumaeus. The…
The Catholic ThingOldest Little Daughter, Arise
By Fr. Benedict Kiely Jesus is asked by Jairus, an official of the Jerusalem Synagogue, to come to his house and heal his daughter who is gravely ill. As…
The Catholic ThingBe a Sinner, not a Hypocrite
By Fr. Paul D. Scalia Are you a hypocrite? Well, it might feel like that at times. At least, it should. Anyone striving for something great should be aware of…
The Catholic ThingBlessed Fulton and the Fullness of the Faith
By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza The saints are always greater, because the Gospel is always greater. Greater than our usual categories, our customary ways of…
The Catholic ThingAquinas and Shakespeare on Guilt
By Brad Miner We've all done things we regret. One of the many salvific glories of Catholicism is the Sacrament of Penance, although, as we all know, the…
The Catholic ThingTwo Portraits of Archbishop Fulton Sheen America's Chrysostom Michael Pakaluk __________ An Extraordinary Conversation with Fulton Sheen Christopher M. Reilly
By Michael Pakaluk and Christopher Reilly St. John of Antioch, called Chrysostom or "golden-mouthed" (d. 407), "is generally considered. . .the greatest…
The Catholic ThingA Hard Lesson from Memory Lane
By Francis X. Maier The plane from Dakar into Guinea-Bissau was ninety minutes late and, as luck would have it, half a dozen other Americans had flopped…
The Catholic ThingThe Royal Road
By Robert Royal Deo volente, and if air traffic disruptions spare me, I'll be home this morning following a late pilgrimage in America after an overcommitted…
The Catholic ThingJewish Catholic, Catholic Jew?
By Robert J. Kurland In a few weeks (as I write this) the Jewish Holy Days will be here – Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, and Yom Kippur, the Day of…
The Catholic ThingBeing Catholic: Hard – and Joyful
By David G Bonagura, Jr. At first glance, it does not seem hard to be Catholic. Go to Mass on Sunday. Pray. Keep the commandments. Love others. Sounds easy…
The Catholic ThingSacrifice: Religion and the Revitalization of Christian Life
By Elizabeth A. Mitchell Sacrifice is a paradox. A compelling paradox. In his new book, Sacrifice: Religion and the Revitalization of Christian Life, Clemens…
The Catholic ThingThe Original 'Liturgy Wars': Between East and West
By Dmitri Solzhenitsyn But first a note: This summer, the Faith & Reason Institute held its first "Enrichment Days" – conversations about the relations between…
The Catholic ThingTheology of the Body in the Age of AI
By Stephen P. White Everyone who knows anything about Pope John Paul II's "theology of the body" "knows" that it is about sex. Anyone who knows more than a…
The Catholic ThingAll The King's Men
By Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg Sitting atop his ivory wall, the pedantic egghead Humpty Dumpty tells Alice that any word he uses means "just what I choose it…
The Catholic ThingThree To Get Married
By Randall Smith Fulton Sheen, officially to be declared "blessed" in a few days, began his wonderful book Three to Get Married with these four sentences: It…
The Catholic Thing'Third-Party' Punishment is Not Catholic
By Casey Chalk Earlier this year a meta-analysis in Advances in Psychological Science found a correlation between having a heightened sense of…
The Catholic ThingDevolution a la Mode
By Anthony Esolen In the pilot episode of the old television show The Waltons, the six Walton children have gathered outdoors in the cold and the snow, where a…
The Catholic ThingA Century of Catholic Education
By James P. MacGuire In 1896, Episcopal clergyman John Byron Diman founded St. George's School in Newport, R.I. It became one of the so-called Saint Grottlesex…
The Catholic ThingThe Sorrows of Young Zoomers
By Auguste Meyrat With many members of the Gen Z cohort (b. 1997-2012) coming of age and entering public life, it behooves older generations to understand them…
The Catholic ThingThe Day Before Disaster
By Michael Pakaluk "We know that to them that love God, all things work together unto good" (Romans 8:28). Disasters must come in this fallen world, and maybe…
The Catholic ThingMedicinal Notes on Inter-Religious Dialogue
By Francis X. Maier For three of my 27 years on diocesan staff, I had the attached duty of ecumenical and inter-religious affairs. It was great work. We had…
The Catholic ThingFirst, Do No Harm?
By Amy Fahey A little over a year ago, I took my aged father for a specialist visit. The appointment, which I still recall with painful clarity, put me in mind…
The Catholic ThingWork, the World, and the Human Person
By St. Pope John Paul II Through work, man must earn his daily bread and contribute to the continual advance of science and technology and, above all, to…