I admit I did not understand what Pope John XXIII meant. In announcing his intention to call an ecumenical council, he said that the Church ...

I didn't plan it. There was no rhyme or reason for it. It was just coincidence. But I found it amusing when I noticed in my stack of boo...

I've come to believe that the most difficult virtue to acquire is honesty, and the hardest thing to speak is the truth. Dishonesty in po...

There is a formula, popularly known as the Hegelian dialectic, for investigating how an idea or movement develops. Although German philosoph...

The Fourth of July is the closest we Americans come to a national religious celebration. Of course we maintain that proverbial wall of separ...

I've been asked more than once during my 40 years of priesthood, "What kind of priest are you anyway?" The questioner was not ...

On December 8, 1864, Pope Pius IX issued an encyclical letter titled Quanta Cura ("With Great Care"). He directed the Church'...