Crisis Magazine

In a rare interview with the BBC, Evelyn Waugh, who detested giving them, was asked which of his many books was his favorite. Helena, he shot back. Puzzled, the reporter asked why. Because, he said in effect, it was both the best book he ever wrote, especially given its religious theme, and because it was the one book he took more pains in producing than any other. So fond in fact was he of the…

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Unless you have been living under a rock, I am sure you are aware that the Church is experiencing a vocation crisis. The numbers are bleak, and they have been for decades. Sure, there are bright spots here and there, mainly with traditional orders and societies of priests who often ordain more priests in a single seminary than the entire nation of Ireland did last year. Nonetheless…

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That Robert Louis Stevenson had a not-so-secret sympathy with Catholicism is evident in his book Travels with a Donkey in the Cevennes, where he describes a visit to the Trappist monastery Notre-Dame des Neiges (Our Lady of the Snows). I recall the white-washed chapel, the hooded figures in the choir, the lights alternately occluded and revealed, the strong manly singing…

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No morning passes these days when a Catholic does not wake up to the unsettling presence of that two-headed beast that roams about our society: secularism. One of its heads is atheism—modern man’s passion to be god, and the other is utopianism—man’s other obsession to turn this world into some kind of heaven. These are twin evils, feeding off one another. Seldom can a culture survive their terrors.

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Today the Church celebrates the Feast of the Ascension, although in many U.S. dioceses it will not be celebrated until Sunday. The feast evokes many thoughts and feelings. It tells us we’re near the end of the Easter season. We may wonder where the time went. We might be looking forward to Pentecost and anticipating the newness of the Holy Spirit. Or, we might be remembering ham dinner and…

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Once whispered in hushed tones and brushed aside as mere tales for the tinfoil-hatted, the narrative of vaccine injuries has pirouetted into the spotlight of undeniable existence. It is uncommon to encounter individuals without at least one acquaintance who has experienced vaccine-related side effects. But Big Pharma and the WHO are not stopping anytime soon. Instead, they’ve upped the ante.

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I began a daily journal on March 15, 2020, when everything solid turned liquid. I had just written a letter to Bishop Burns of Dallas, begging him, for pity’s sake, not to close the churches like Boston and Newark had done. I naïvely hoped such foolishness would never take hold in Texas. So, my journal is, at least, a record of what we were like before our credulity and goodwill were abused.

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Last week a group of 17 prominent Catholics released a “Call for the Resignation of Pope Francis.” In the lengthy statement, they claim that “the words and actions of Pope Francis have caused an unprecedented crisis in the Catholic Church.” The statement details a laundry list of alleged crimes—against canonical, civil, natural, and divine law—committed by Pope Francis during his pontificate…

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On April 25, EWTN’s Raymond Arroyo did an exclusive, hour-long interview with Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. Kudos to both Arroyo and Kennedy for sitting down to dialogue in a civil, thoughtful manner that’s too rare nowadays for people on separate sides of the political aisle. For Kennedy, that side of the aisle has been the Democratic side, given his family’s roots as an iconic Democrat family…

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It’s funny to be writing this on a typewriter; but truly, I think there is a great deal to be said for the slogan “be different.” Pope Francis infamously told a World Youth Day audience to “make a mess,” and that is exactly what I’ve been doing with this typewriter for the past thirty minutes. Spurred on by an editorial in the latest issue of The European Conservative, I have been marveling…

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Last week the U.S. House of Representatives, in a 320-91 vote, approved the Anti-Semitism Awareness Act (ASAA), requiring the Department of Education to expand the definition of anti-Semitism as demanded by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This bipartisan measure, expected to be adopted by the Senate, comes at a time when police authorities are seeking to suppress anti…

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In “Veni Creator,” his lyric address to the Holy Spirit, Czeslaw Milosz reminds God of a couple of things, basic facts which, of course, God already knows: I am only a man: I need visible signs. I tire easily, building the stairway of abstraction. It probably never occurred to one of Poland’s premier poets of the last century that his hunger for concrete connection might work both…

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Nations, as well as people, can be unsung heroes. They can suffer and be heroic in their suffering. Poland is such a nation. Hemmed in by neighbors that have all too often been enemies—and, as often as not, conquering enemies—Poland’s whole history has been shaped by suffering. It has been besieged and attacked by the Russians in the east and the Prussians in the west, and by the Swedes in the…

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The Dream of Gerontius—a masterful mix of lyricism and theology—was written in 1865 by John Henry Newman, who, having left the Anglican communion twenty years before, straightaway became England’s most famous convert to the True Faith, which he could only find in the Church of Rome. Set down in a series of seven rhymed sections numbering fifty-plus pages, the book became an immediate bestseller…

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A baby was born to my daughter Gigi’s teacher in our parish Montessori school. The baby lived in the classroom for a few years. I don’t think that baby’s feet touched the ground for two full years. They kept a closely guarded list of the girls who got to carry her next. In this part of Northern Virginia, we have large families all around us. It is lovely to see teen boys gathering around to…

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I appreciate that cigar culture has finer points, but the smell of cigars still makes me queasy. Likewise, Flannery O’Connor. She is an acquired taste, and this review of Wildcat, the new biodrama of O’Connor, is written from the perspective of one who has not thoroughly acquired it. I daresay I’m not alone on the periphery of her fandom. Most people, when asked if they have read Flannery O’Connor…

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On April 24th and 25th, Catholics Answers’ Jimmy Akin and the Reformed Baptist Dr. James White squared off in a two-night debate at First Baptist Church of Livingston, Louisiana. The first evening addressed the question of sola scriptura and the second “How Does One Find Peace With God,” or the doctrine of justification. The debate featured two of the most prominent apologists from the Catholic…

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We’ve all had the experience of waking up at night and not being able to go back to sleep. Such was the case for me not long ago. Usually, in this situation, my mind would find a train of thought and then take off. We all know how that story ends: toss and turn for the next three hours; then, at last, your mind tires out and you fall back to sleep—just in time for the alarm to go off and you have…

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I confess a fondness for the old Star Trek television series, which had little to do with science and a lot to do with perennial questions regarding human nature; Paradise Lost or Gunsmoke in outer space. One episode commonly named as among the best, “The City on the Edge of Forever,” presents to the shrewd but passionate Captain Kirk a terrible conundrum. The ship’s surgeon, Dr. McCoy…

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I have been ordained since 2015, and I personally know of nearly a dozen priests who have left ministry. They are priests from my diocese (five readily come to mind) and others whom I went to seminary with, either classmates or men ahead or behind me in formation. Priests leave for any number of reasons. The most tragic is when the priest has abused someone or there is an allegation.

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