That the Catholic Church has been losing numbers for decades has been well established. Why the loss has occurred, however, is not as clear. One might expect that Church leaders would be interested in finding the answer and sharing it with their...
A reader recently offered this (paraphrased) comment on an essay of mine: “Your essay and others like it leave me frustrated. They talk about the impact of Modernism, the failures of U.S. bishops and Pope Francis, sexual abuse by priests, financial...
The Lord of the Rings serves as an exceptional benchmark of 20th-century literature. It has been acclaimed by both scholars and hippies and has been enjoyed by readers of the general public as well as by faithful Christians. In the years since its...
For centuries missionary priests have risked their lives to spread the Gospel and expand the reach of the Catholic Church. Many have been martyred for their efforts. In Japan, as beautifully dramatised in Martin Scorcese’s Silence, the Shogunate of...
For centuries Catholics were discouraged, and even forbidden, from reading non-Catholic works lest their faith be undermined. Such precautions were reasonable when the laity were largely uneducated and even illiterate. Though that is no longer the...
Recently, while dusting my bookcase, I noticed my copy of Malachi Martin’s The Decline and Fall of the Roman Church, published in 1981. I flipped through its underscored and annotated pages and realized that Martin’s observations seem even...
Eldad and Medad were not in the tent when the Spirit of God came upon the 70 in the Book of Numbers (11:25-29). Eldad and Medad weren’t there, but they still received the Spirit and began to prophesize. “Stop them,” Joshua told Moses, “Why?” asked...
There are approximately 1.2 billion Catholics in the world today so why are the churches empty? This is easily explained by the fact that too many Catholics are Catholics “in name only.” In other words, they haven’t seen the inside of a church in...
