Author: Biltrix The Capital of the World, one of Ernest Hemingway’s lesser known short stories, tells the tragic tale of a Spanish bullfighter who never made it into the ring. Nothing strange about that. Futility and Pessimism are always dominant themes in Hemingway’s writing. After reading The Sun Also Rises, I just sat there for a while asking myself, “Does it? Where? Not in this book, it doesn’t.” At a young age I decided to put down the Hemingway and stick to Calvin and Hobbes instead.
In 1996, Pope Benedict (then CDC prefect, Josef Cardinal Ratzinger) delivered an address to the Conference of Central American Bishops entitled, “Relativism: The Central Problem for the Faith Today” — a 10 page document I managed to summarize in 15 pages. I don’t intend another summary here.
The discourse’s title says it all: We’ve got a problem with the faith today, a central problem with a capital P — that doesn’t stand for Pool — and name of the problem is Relativism. To this effect, Ratzinger, while holding his finger on post-modern religion’s waning pulse, observed that: More…
In this short video, Fr John Bartunek skillfully answers this question.
By Fr Edward Hopkins
Fr Edward Hopkins
This week the Church begins the “Year of Faith” called by Pope Benedict. October 11 marks the 50th anniversary of the 2nd Vatican Council. Why a year of Faith?
The Pope reminds us that we need to rediscover our journey of faith, which includes rediscovering a taste for feeding ourselves on the word of God. In his words: More…
Not just another Sunday Gospel reflection…
Last Sunday’s Gospel reading was about hell, but it wasn’t all about hell. In this Sunday’s Gospel, Jesus speaks about divorce, but his message is not all about divorce. More…
By Fr Jason Smith
The Awakening Conscience
We ache because we are not full.
In The Awakening Conscience William Holman Hunt places his finger—or brush, better said, on the ache found deep within every person: We either have God who alone can fill us, or we will endlessly try to pursue the things that cannot do so.
By most standards today, the woman in Hunt’s painting should be blissfully happy, if wealth, prestige, social status, gourmet eating, sexual encounters, and the like, indeed left one filled. More…
I’m sorry, I must have missed something… Was there a plan A?
“Some New York city public high schools now offer students “The Morning After” birth control pill; and Mayor Bloomberg’s cool with it, so long as they wash it down with a soda that’s less than 16 ounces!” — Jodi Miller, News Busted
My news feeds this morning were flooded with articles touting: “Studies show that free birth control leads to fewer abortions,” More…
Giotto — Saint Francis receiving the Stigmata
I am a worm, not a man. — Psalm 22:6
Everyone loves Saint Francis. Catholics, non-Catholics, non-Christians… It doesn’t matter. You don’t need to be a Franciscan to have a statue of the austere, rustic, peace-loving, animal-loving St. Francis in your lawn or garden, like this one. More…
Marriage. More than a civil rights issue, it is a civilization issue. Why? More…
Biltrix 