Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
Inspired by Truth, Enlightening Minds for the Church in Canada and Throughout the World
A very blessed Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God – of which more, anon – as well as New Year’s Eve, the latter much more celebrated in our culture than the former, even if, to a Catholic mind, we should rejoice in both, together. Speaking of rejoicing, one gains a plenary indulgence for reciting (or,[…]
Today is the feast of Saint John the Evangelist, also called the ‘Beloved’, as the one closest to the heart of Our Lord, likely the youngest Apostle, who lived to ripe old age, writing his Apocalypse (Revelation) towards the end of the first century. He is the only Apostle not celebrated as a martyr, witnessing[…]
I just finished reading Joseph Pearce’s biography of Alexander Solzhenitsyn, subtitled ‘A Soul in Exile’, a remarkable book, packing a very full life into a very readable pages, showing what the indomitable will of one man can do against a vast totalitarian regime. Solzhenitsyn’s life is almost a reverse 1984, and he the anti-Winston. Orwell’s[…]
Was there ever a golden age of Catholic and Islamic relations? The evidence for such is slim, with the two religions seemingly incompatible and irreconcilable – after all, they both want to convert everyone to their respective religion, and one believes that Christ is Lord, Redeemer and Saviour, God from God and Light from Light,[…]
The DSM – the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual – is the textbook, one might even call it the bible, of psychiatry and psychology. After watching the presentation below, we might be tempted to rename it the DSFM – Diagnostic Science Fiction Manual. Like the literary genre, there is some science, mixed in with some fiction,[…]
In 1998, 25 years ago, Pope Saint John Paul II published his encyclical, Fides et Ratio, on the relationship between faith and reason, the ‘two wings on which human reason rises to the heights of truth’. Everything we know, we know by these two modes – either we figure it out with our own wits,[…]
November 18th is also the optional memorial of Saint Rose Philippine Duchesne (1769 – 1852), a native of France, but who spent much of her life as a missionary in the American midwest, back when it was wild and wooly territory. She was from a noble family, whose fortunes somehow survived the persecutions of the[…]
November the 8th is the feast day of the great Franciscan university professor, philosopher and theologian, Blessed John Duns Scotus. Little is known about his personal life together with the chronology of his writings. We know that he was called by God to embrace the Franciscan charism, joining the Order of the Friars Minor, and[…]
I was waiting for it, as I listened to a recent pro-life talk I attended, the topic of which was IVF: I had an inkling the presenter would raise the fractious issue of ‘adopting’ abandoned frozen embryos, which many Christians, even Catholics, support. It seems a win-win: The mother gets a child, and the child[…]
On October 11, 1649, the troops of Oliver Cromwell, who was then ‘Lord Protector of England’, stormed the besieged village of Wexford, Ireland. The soldiers killed indiscriminately, leaving 1600 dead. This was par for the course for Cromwell – not the first nor the last of his massacres, which he justified to ‘quell future resistance’.[…]
