Each year on March 19, Catholics throughout the world interrupt the austerities of Lent to celebrate the Solemnity of Saint Joseph, patron of fathers and of the universal Church. Coming as I do from a Sicilian family, this feast has always carried a special significance. My father was not unlike St. . . . . Continue Reading »
In a conversation about Russian Orthodoxy some dozen years ago, that famous source who can only be quoted off-the-record, the Senior Vatican Official, said to me, “They only know how to be chaplain to the czar—whoever he is.” Such asperity reflected deep frustration over the Russian . . . . Continue Reading »
Ulf Ekman’s conversion to the Catholic Church sparked a healthy discussion over how to hold the reforming impulse of Protestantism alongside the new ecumenical impulse.The starting place for such a discussion is the recognition that the reforming impulse and the ecumenical impulse converge on . . . . Continue Reading »
The recent PBS documentary from Frontline, “Secrets of the Vatican,” was an artful mix of baroque music, sweeping cinematography, imaginative speculation, and recycled conspiracy theories. It contained a gelatinous mixture of truths, half-truths, and no truths. Still, it left me feeling . . . . Continue Reading »
Dietrich von Hildebrand and Edith Stein were born on the same day, October 12, just two years apart (Dietrich in 1889, Edith in 1891), and there the similarities ended—for a while. Continue Reading »
Bishop Rimbo is getting creative. Leader of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America’s New York diocese since 2008, Robert Alan Rimbo has seen 20 percent of his flock depart over the last decade. Now, as the Wall Street Journal reports, his churches are advertising with giant crossword . . . . Continue Reading »
The recent revelation that Mars Hill Church in Seattle paid an outside company to boost sales of its pastor’s books has raised questions not simply about personal integrity but also about the very culture of American Evangelicalism.As an English Presbyterian living in the States, I am never . . . . Continue Reading »
Over many decades and in voluminous writings, René Girard has elaborated a theory of sacrifice, scapegoating, and violence that purports to unveil things hidden from the foundations of the world. He has become a guru, not least to Christian theologians eager to formulate non-violent versions of . . . . Continue Reading »
The founder of one of Sweden’s largest Protestant congregations is converting to Catholicism. This past Sunday Ulf Ekman announced to the Word of Life church he founded that he and his wife would swim the Tiber. Major news even in secular Sweden, the Dagens Nyheter, Sweden’s largest . . . . Continue Reading »
His real name was George Pease Williams, but to ward off insensitive school-yard taunts as a young boy he constructed a more elegant middle name for himself, and this is how he was known for the rest of his life: George Huntston Williams (1914-2000). When I arrived at Harvard University in 1972, he . . . . Continue Reading »
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