“Do you not know,” says Saint Paul, “that we shall judge angels?” Therefore we are within our rights to judge a mere man’s actions, setting aside any presumption that we know for certain what is in his heart. Not only may we do so. We must. Public order demands it, and justice, and that part of charity, requiring … Read more
In my previous article I expressed some disagreement with people who said that the now disgraced Theodore McCarrick must never have had more than a “notional” faith, because otherwise he never would have done the wicked things he did. In the meantime, one of my acquaintances described her encounters with McCarrick, who was invariably nice to … Read more
Let us hear no more from priests, prelates, and Catholic writers dissenting from the truth – from reason, from Scripture, from the constant and clear teaching of the Church in the matter of the creation of mankind male and female, the one-flesh union willed by God from the beginning, the raising of boys to be … Read more
More than fifty years ago, a group of prelates, priests, and cherry-picked leaders in Catholic higher education published the so-called “Land O’ Lakes Statement,” a declaration of independence made on behalf of Catholic colleges from the oversight of, and from influence by, the Holy See, local bishops, and the magisterium of the Church. The ostensible … Read more
The disgrace of Theodore Cardinal McCarrick, credibly accused of having for many years groomed and abused teenage boys, seminarians, and priests, sometimes with some measure of consent and sometimes without any consent at all, gives us a rare opportunity to survey the whole miserable scene as regards both the Church and what, for want of an … Read more
If you went hiking among the lichen-topped rocks and the icy mountains of Baffin Island, and you suddenly came upon a deep ravine like a cleft in the world, and felt warm moist breezes from below, and you saw, a thousand feet down, the green crowns of trees, and heard the tinkling of sheep bells … Read more