For most of the Church’s history in the United States, Catholics have sought to demonstrate to their often suspicious neighbors the possibility of being a faithful Catholic and a patriotic American. This has been no easy task, given the modern and Protestant character of the nation’s founding . . . . Continue Reading »
Perhaps the most striking of John Courtney Murray's aphorisms was phrased, if memory serves, like this: “Death is the only thing we really have to look forward to.” Continue Reading »
The Church of Christ: A Collection of Essays by Monsignor Joseph C. Fenton by joseph clifford fenton edited with an introduction by christian d. washburn cluny, 362 pages, $25.95 Laying the Foundation: A Handbook of Catholic Apologetics and Fundamental Theology by joseph clifford fenton . . . . Continue Reading »
Every practicing Catholic in America is stuck between two worlds. On one hand, he inhabits a broadly secular culture, one indifferent to claims about the transcendent, in which the currency of human exchange is always some mix of money, pleasure, and power. His participation in that culture is nearly constant—it surrounds him in mass media, on the internet, in patterns of speech, in social expectations, and in the aims and operations of his government. The modern Catholic in America is swimming in secularity. Continue Reading »
Toward the end of Vatican Council II (1962-1965), John Courtney Murray, S.J., in the company of other clerics, concelebrated mass with Pope Paul VI. Like most other Americans who were in St. Peter’s at the time, I felt that it was a much-deserved and long-overdue public ecclesiastical . . . . Continue Reading »
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