The Narthex

A big lie is that Catholics oppress women by, for example, not allowing them to be ordained priests or deacons, by not giving them (enough) positions of power in the Vatican, by keeping them “barefoot and pregnant” by opposing contraception and abortion, and by holding marriage up as a realizable…

It is serendipitous coincidence that the Gospel of Our Lord’s conversation with Nicodemus, “the man who came to Jesus at night” (John 3:2), occurred this year on the same Sunday that Daylight Savings Time began -- and within ten days of the beginning of spring. (Spring this year begins the…

The story of the three Magi from the East following the star to Jerusalem is told during the Christmas season (Matt. 2:1-18). It is not like the heart-warming aspects of Christ’s birth, with an angel speaking to shepherds and angels singing. Rather, it is a story that ends with weeping…

Donald DeMarco, over at Crisis (linked below), asks whether Pope Francis has a “fixation” with ecological issues. A cursory look at environmentalism and climate fundamentalism suggests these "isms" have in many cases acquired all the attributes of a secular religion. To what degree have even sincerely religious people allowed environmental…

Oren Cass's First Things Lecture in Washington, D.C., on March 4 addressed the topic “Constructing Conservatism in the Secular Age.” The talk’s core argument was that American conservatism’s reliance on religious faith to make its central values arguments collides with the growing secularization of U.S. culture, causing it to lose…

“The lady doth protest too much, methinks” is a Shakespeare line about a Hamlet character whose overacting makes one believe she is hellbent on concealing the truth of things. That line comes to mind on reading a featured editorial at Vatican News (Feb. 27): “Fiducia supplicans: Non-Liturgical blessings and Pope…

Modern western Christians often like to persuade themselves that there is no real and personal Devil, but wishful thinking of that kind wouldn't wash with our Church Fathers and doesn't square with Gospel accounts of the Gadarene swine or of Jesus's own temptations in the wilderness. C.S. Lewis in his…

I have noticed an Ash Wednesday phenomenon in recent years in Washington. It even preceded COVID. Various clergymen set up tables outside Metro subway stations, offering ashes-on-demand. Last Wednesday morning, for example, there was something of an ecumenical duel outside one station. On the north side of the entrance were…

The Church offers two formulae as options to be used during imposition of ashes, the sign of penance. The older formula is “Remember, man, that you are dust and to dust you will return.” The newer one is actually not new at all, because it repeats the first public words…

The First Reading and Gospel for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, focus on leprosy. The reading from Leviticus 13:1-2, 44-46 (one of the few times that Old Testament book appears in the Lectionary) prescribes procedures for determining if one is a leper and how he was to…

On February 2, the Vatican's Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) issued the Note Gestis verbisque, reiterating that sacramental ministers, when celebrating the sacraments, must adhere to their matter and form. From February 6-9, the Dicastery for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments (DDWDS) is conducting a…

Gestis verbisque, the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith’s recent "Note" on sacramental validity, raises questions about the spirituality of a sacramental minister. Occasioned by apparently growing concerns about the number of potentially invalid baptisms resulting from priests or deacons who tampered with the essential form of the sacrament…

“Celebrate Catholic Schools Week,” an initiative of the National Catholic Educational Association, is observed January 28-February 3. Parishes with schools traditionally have a special student Mass on Sunday and at least one open house during the week. In that sense, “Celebrate Catholic Schools Week” seems a kind of recruitment tool…

In the middle of the Gulf War of 1991, the commanding general, the late General Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr. (“Stormin’ Norman”), complained publicly that he was receiving intelligence reports filled with so many caveats, qualifiers, and footnotes, that it was as though, he said, the reports had been written by lawyers.…

The readings for the Feast of the Holy Family seem, by some contemporary standards, to be a bit quaint and dated. That’s because they put a lot of emphasis on obedience. Obedience correlates with other concepts, including authority and even hierarchy. Those are words at which our “democratic” world (and…