Holy Spirit Roman Catholic Church

In theory it is easy to “love your enemies,” but when it comes to putting our faith into practice, it is quite another thing. “Enemies” can encompass a wide variety of people we encounter on a daily basis. It could be the person who cuts us off on the highway, or who gives us a Read More…

Look at a crucifix when you don’t want to love an enemy

Pope Leo XIV closed the Vatican’s recent Lenten spiritual retreat by expressing appreciation for Bishop Erik Varden’s reference to a poem written by St. John Henry Newman. Called, “The Dream of Gerontius,” Bishop Varden spoke of how the poem uses death and judgment as a prism for confronting the fear of death. It’s a fitting Read More…

Poem by a Doctor of the Church that Leo says helped his prayer

My photo had become the visual shorthand for white supremacy in contemporary America. The writings of G.K. Chesterton, however, helped lead me to Christ and His Church.

The always-online smartphone culture is training our brains to favor passive behaviors and lazy thinking.

Pope Leo offered reflections on the deep meaning of the Gospel account of the Transfiguration, celebrated with a feast in August, but also read at Mass on this 2nd Sunday of Lent. He said: the Holy Spirit redeems us from the loneliness of agnosticism by offering us an everlasting communion of life and grace; and Read More…

The Father’s reply to the despair of atheism: Pope’s thoughts

Some books are discovered quietly. Others arrive with insistence. “You have to read this,” a friend says, pressing a well-thumbed paperback into your hands. “Trust me.” Lucinda Riley’s Seven Sisters series became exactly that kind of phenomenon. Passed between sisters, book clubs, colleagues, and neighbors, the sweeping saga of seven women tracing their origins across Read More…

Lucinda Riley’s ‘Seven Sisters’: A legacy beyond the page

Perhaps when we think of excommunication, we think of a cardinal or bishop wagging his finger at a person in some sort of Church court. Excommunication is typically seen by the media or movies as some sort of punishment that the Catholic Church deals out when she really wants to make sure that an individual Read More…

What does it mean to be “automatically” excommunicated?

At the start of the conflict in Iran, the bishops of the two vicariates that oversee the gulf countries of Arabia and more than 2 million Catholic faithful there issued statements. Both prayed, “May Our Lady of Arabia, our mother, watch over us all.” The two statements are brief, and encouraged the faithful to be Read More…

“May Our Lady of Arabia watch over us all”

I can’t help but think that we’re thinking about chastity all wrong. Precisely backwards, in fact, and this mix-up is behind the reason so many of us struggle to be chaste. We’re picturing a constant battle against sin, the relentless process of leaving something we desire behind. In this scenario, chastity can be conceived as Read More…

We’re getting chastity all wrong, and that makes it harder

Everyone remembers when the world was shut down during the great lockdown of 2020. However, there are some things that we are in danger of forgetting, not least of which is the way that the Covid pandemic was used as a pretext to declare war on religion and religious liberty.