Doug Sikkema Interviews Randy Boyagoda

Should a contemporary cosmopolitan novelist's opinion about Catholic culture matter?

First Things: The Breath of God: A Conversation with Randy Boyagoda by Randy Boyagoda

In an age of collapse, how many new books do we need?


(Imaginative Conservative)

The Confession

More Catholic Art Needed

Jack Kerouac, Revisited

AmConMag: Debunking the Caricature of Jack Kerouac the Nihilist By Scott Beauchamp
A new book suggests the Catholic-born icon was more spiritual than the "beatnik" label suggests.

Greta Gerwig's Latest

“Lady Bird” and the Breakthrough of Grace by Bishop Robert Barron

Running underneath Greta Gerwig’s complex story of love and conflict is religion, more precisely, Catholicism.

TOT Silicon Valley Fall Series

See the schedule at the website here.

Catholic Street Evangelization

CWR: Catholic street evangelization and getting “back to basics”
Steve Dawson spends his days talking to strangers about Jesus—and rejects the idea that street evangelization is a "Protestant thing."
By Paul Senz

A Socon Website?

The Way of Beauty

CWR: Finding the Way of Beauty by Carrie Gress, Ph.D.
Author and artist David Clayton on living the “via pulchritudinis” in our daily lives.

The Imaginative Conservative: The Catholic Enlightenment: A Forgotten History by Bradley J. Birzer

The Catholic Enlightenment: The Forgotten History of a Global Movement by Ulrich L. Lehner

The book's description I find to be rather repulsive, if accurate -- why is this, then, being touted at a "conservative" website? Maybe the book is more nuanced than the publisher portrays it.

Who Invented the Horrible Idea of Women as Breeders? by Ulrich L. Lehner

A Good Book for Roman Catholic Men?

God on Our Side by Brad Miner

Marching Orders: A Tactical Plan for Converting the World to Christ by Dan Maguire

Mother Teresa Movie

Too sappy? Or just right?

Pope Francis on Thursday authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate a decree regarding a miracle...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Friday, December 18, 2015

Blessed Teresa of Calcutta is to be made a Saint. Pope Francis on Thursday authorized the Congregation for the Causes of...

Posted by Vatican Radio - English Section on Friday, December 18, 2015

A Cult

To My fellow Cultists by Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky

"Every priest is asked questions about behavior during worship, both what should be done to show proper respect in the...

Posted by Orthodox Christian Network on Saturday, December 19, 2015

The Priests (검은 사제들)

Saw the movie yesterday with πατήρ; πατήρ actually enjoyed it as a movie, not for its theological points. If you played a drinking game where you had to take a shot for something in the movie that is portrayed as Catholic but isn't really, you probably wouldn't get past the first 30 minutes. (Before the movie's depiction of the rite of exorcism, which would definitely put you over the edge of sobriety.) The movie is interesting for what visual symbols are used to depict authentic Catholicism (icons, censers, cassocks, rosaries, statues of Mary, the use of Latin). Maybe the best part of me was the use of the sequence for Mass for the Day of Pascha, chanted by the assistant deacon (played by Kang Dong-wan) and used for the end credits, which I rarely heard during my Latin trad days, as I usually attended the vigil Mass and slept the next morning. (πατήρ had to identify it for me.)



Also interesting was the depiction of Korean shaman religion in the movie. Accurate? While the Korean Franciscan priest/exorcist (played by Kim Yoon-seok) was "ecumenical" in praising the shaman's effectiveness in expelling demons, the shaman does fail to do so for the high school girl at the center of the movie. (More "traditional" exorcists like Fr. Amorth would probably see shaman religion as being spiritually problematic in its communication with the spirits and use of spells/chants -- contributing to the problem rather than solving it. "By what authority do you cast out demons?")

The First American Thanksgiving

As one sympathetic to the South the most, I would recognize the thanksgiving celebrated at Berkeley Plantation in Virginia as the first, though the observance of the harvest festival should depend on when the harvest actually takes place, rather than separated by Federal diktat from local culture and farms.

Some Catholics would look at French or Spanish (NYT 1) celebrations of thanksgiving as being historically the first "American" thanksgiving, but it seems to me that this is Latin Catholics trying to impose the history with which they identify on others, a form of neo-Yankee behavior or (Roman) Catholic triumphalism at its worst. For example, Taylor Marshall (via Tea at Trianon) or Pro Ecclesia or Joe Carter. There may even be some non-Catholic, multiculturalist neo-Yankees, subscribing to the notion of the proposition nation, who may accept this sort of thinking, identifying "America" with the territory rather than the people living in that territory. I do not know Mr. Marshall's own family history but this seems to me to be symptomatic of an immigrant Church that never really assimilated to the natives. There is no attempt to take the Gospel to a people with which they identify, and adapt to that people, rather than assuming some sort of distinct (even superior) identity from that of the Anglo-Celtic (Protestant) natives.
‎
Giving Thanks for Thanksgiving by Joseph Pearce
Thanksgiving by Brian Miller
The Joys of Solitude: Thanksgiving! by Ralph Nader

As Christian as St. Monica's Marriage

The Mystery of Christian Marriage: Felix & Elisabeth Leseur by K. V. Turley

If he did not convert (or "revert") until after his wife's death, can we really say the marriage itself was Christian? Of course her life of charity and intercession had a role to play in his conversion but that does not mean that the marriage (or their married life) itself was Christian. (Would we say that the marriage was sacramental, even if he had been baptized?)

The Founder of the KoC

Supreme Chaplain Archbishop Lori speaks on Venerable Father McGivney's life and legacy in his homily during the Mass of Thanksgiving celebrated to honor the 125th Anniversary of Father McGivney's passing. #McGivneysMonth #Pray4Canonization

Posted by Knights of Columbus on Tuesday, August 18, 2015

A Summary of the New Emangelization Survey

at Catholic World Report

Laboring in the Vineyard at 100

“St. Peter says: 'Be sober and keep watch, because the devil as a roaring lion walks about, seeking whom he may devour.” Read his incredible story here!

Posted by Catholic News Agency on Wednesday, August 5, 2015

From Ignatius Press in September

Behold the Man: A Catholic Vision of Male Spirituality
by Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers

Lucid and inspiring, Behold the Man is a unique exploration of Catholic spirituality for men. Much of the literature written for Catholic men focuses on topical issues such as fatherhood and sexuality. While this book does not exclude these subjects, it is the first to present a comprehensive picture of Catholic male spirituality.

What is authentic male Catholic spirituality? What distinguishes it from Protestant male spirituality? How does masculine spirituality complement feminine spirituality? These questions and many more are answered in this book.

Drawing from Scripture and Church teaching, the author roots Catholic male spirituality in a covenant relationship with God and the cross of Jesus Christ. He demonstrates that when a man embraces the cross he is truly able to be himself—the man that God created and calls him to be. Behold the Man can deepen a man’s experience of Christ and help him to know the Lord more intimately.

Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers (FB)

I don't know him, so I don't know if his message goes beyond the usual Christian so-con solutions to the usual Christian so-con criticisms of American men.