In the course of an insightful essay on Vladimir Putin’s challenge to civilization, Italian historian Roberto de Mattei, observed that, amidst the general decline of the West, “the … more

On March 31, the bishops of France announced that they would petition the Holy See for permission to open a beatification cause for Father Henri de Lubac, SJ. Whatever the outcome of the cause, … more

A good friend habitually refers to the Wall Street Journal as his “favorite Catholic newspaper”—a bit of whimsy not without foundation, given the openness of the Journal’s op-ed pages to serious Catholic argument on numerous issues. But just as Homer occasionally nods, so does America’s best newspaper. And on Jan. 2, the Journal nodded, big-time, in this description of why Pope Francis was one of the “People to Watch” in 2014: more

Twenty-four years ago this week, I was in Jerusalem to cover Pope John Paul II’s epic pilgrimage to the Holy Land for NBC. After going to the Church of the Holy Sepulchre to pray at the 11th … more

Three days before Christmas 1952 and a month before his inauguration as the 34th president of the United States, Dwight D. Eisenhower addressed the Freedoms Foundation at the Waldorf-Astoria in New … more

What came first: Creation, or God’s covenants with the People of Israel and the New Israel, the Church? The question may seem odd, even silly. Chronologically, it’s obvious that the … more

By their vocabulary, you shall know them? Well, to a considerable degree. And in these early November days, when the Church celebrates all the saints in glory and prays for those who yearn to join … more

In a recent article on the social doctrine of John Paul II in the Jesuit journal La Civiltà Cattolica, Father Fernando de la Iglesia Viguiristi, SJ, had this to say about one facet of John … more

Perspective is at least as important when reading the signs of the times as it is in landscape painting. And so, in this autumn of our Catholic discontent, I was particularly grateful to hear from an … more

Twenty-five years ago, on Jan. 27, 1989, a joint statement from the communist government of Poland, the Solidarity trade union, and the Catholic Church announced a national “Roundtable” to discuss the country’s future, including major structural issues of political and economic reform. The Roundtable began the following month; basic agreements were reached in April; partially-free elections, swept by Solidarity candidates, were held in June; and in September, a Solidarity leader, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, became Poland’s first non-communist prime minister since World War II. more

Shortly after the 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea, I noted in this column and elsewhere that the entire episode — including the fouling of the public space by the aggressor’s genocidal … more

Papal approbation being no bad thing, I was delighted to learn that Pope Francis, in a homily a few weeks ago, had suggested that his congregants learn the date of their baptisms and celebrate it—which is precisely what I have been proposing to audiences around the country this past year, when discussing my book, Evangelical Catholicism. more

A few days after Cardinal Matteo Zuppi’s appointment as head of a Vatican “peace mission” to “help ease tensions in the conflict in Ukraine” (as Vatican News put it), a … more

​In Jesus of Nazareth — Holy Week, Pope Benedict XVI remarked on the striking parallel between the presence of the holy women at the cross of Christ and their role in the first appearances of … more