Pope John Paul II and the Christ-centered Anthropology of Gaudium et Spes
Editor’s Note: The following article originally appeared, in a slightly different form, in the July/August 2000 issue of Catholic Faith magazine. It is republished here to mark the feast day for...
View ArticleThe True Spirit of Vatican II
As far as I know, no participant in the Second Vatican Council summed up its goals or described its spirit as addressing the question whether God’s truth and love are effective, that is, whether they...
View Article“Every one to whom much is given, of him will much be required”
The teaching of Vatican II on the question of salvation entails surprises. While the Council holds that there is no salvation outside the Church, it exerts itself with solicitude for those who may...
View ArticleSaint John Paul II, Alive Among the Saints
At the outset of his Petrine ministry and several times thereafter, Pope Wojtyla told us that his pontificate was dedicated to the faithful interpretation and implementation of the Second Vatican...
View ArticleLight for the Nations: Themes of “Lumen gentium”, Fifty Years Later
November 21, 2014 marks the fiftieth anniversary of the promulgation of Vatican II’s central document, the Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. If the articles that this occasions reflect a strain of...
View ArticleOn Brebeuf Jesuit and the Church’s witness to God’s definition of love
It is interesting to observe that in the Catholic New Agency (CNA) report of June 20, 2019 on Archbishop Charles Thompson rescinding recognition of Brebeuf Jesuit as a Catholic institution of secondary...
View ArticleThe Crisis Behind the Crisis of Faith in the Real Presence
Not too long ago, I had occasion to observe in a piece for Catholic World Report (CWR) that a series of previous articles on the Brebeuf Jesuit controversy in the Archdiocese of Indianapolis were...
View ArticleA Saintly View of Vatican II
“By canonizing some of the faithful, i.e., by solemnly proclaiming that they practiced heroic virtue and lived in fidelity to God’s grace, the Church recognizes the power of the Spirit of holiness...
View Article“Thy Kingdom Come!”: Christ the King reigns in consciences
That Jesus taught His disciples to pray for the coming of the kingdom (Mt 6:9–13; Lk 11:2–4) long before they could fully understand its true nature has long intrigued me. Clearly, Jesus intends to...
View ArticleHow should we think about Vatican II?
Editor’s note: The following essay was originally delivered on January 8, 2021, as the Convocation for Spring 2021 Semester at the University of Mary in Bismarck, North Dakota. ——- Introduction There...
View ArticleUnderstanding the Hierarchy of Truths
Catechists, evangelists, apologists and others today sometimes encounter the term “hierarchy of truths.” Sometimes the term is misused to imply that some truths of the faith are negotiable or that some...
View ArticlePraise God for His mercy! On the first Sunday of Lent
On this First Sunday of Lent, 2022, let us attend to the words of St. Augustine: “Anyone who undertakes to praise God and yet will not exalt his mercy above all else, had better keep [...]
View ArticleLessons for Lent from the conversion of King David
A prophet with a perilous mission “And the Lord sent Nathan to David” (2 Sam 12:1). The context of Nathan’s mission is ominous. After committing adultery with Bathsheba and, in order to hide that sin,...
View ArticleLessons for Lent from the conversion of St. Paul
Among the numerous lessons for Lent that can be gleaned from reflecting on the conversion of St. Paul, and especially the fruit of that conversion embodied in his teaching, let us focus first on his [...]
View ArticleLessons for Lent from the conversion of St. Peter
When Simon Peter saw the great catch, he fell down at Jesus’ knees, saying, “Depart from me, for I am a sinful man, O Lord.” (Luke 5:8) Peter had already witnessed Jesus heal his mother-in-law [...]
View ArticleLessons for Lent from the conversion of the Prodigal Son
It is vital to grasp the twofold context in which St. Luke situates his account of the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The first is the immediate context, which shows that the parable, preceded by [...]
View ArticleLessons for Lent from God’s argument about His love
God in the Dock In 1948, C.S. Lewis penned an essay that demonstrated his perspicacity in reading the signs of the times in order to gauge the challenges to effectively communicating the Good News of...
View ArticleThe Eucharist and voting our Christian conscience
“Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup” (1 Cor 11:28). St. Paul’s admonition regarding the worthy reception of Holy Communion is applicable to the entire [...]
View Article
More Pages to Explore .....