Caritas et Veritas

Continuing my series of posts on the biblical roots of the papacy, we have finally come to the NT. In a book that was influential in my own conversion to Catholicism, the then Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (current Pope Benedict XVI), wrote that “it would be misguided to pounce immediately on the classic proof text for ...

I wanted to take a moment to alert our readers to what I consider to be the finest journal on the market dealing with Scripture and theology: Letter & Spirit .  Letter & Spirit is a relatively new journal (first published in 2005) from the St. Paul Center for Biblical Theology, an organization with which ...

Every year at the Rite of Election in my diocese, the Bishop stands up and does an informal poll with those seeking to become Catholic at Easter.  He asks them how many of them decided to become Catholic through reading Catholic literature or hearing or seeing Catholic radio and television?  Some hands raise.  He then ...

Growing up in Cleveland, Ohio, I always considered myself Catholic. For my family being Catholic consisted in being baptized and attending Mass on Christmas and Easter, but most of all, we were Catholic because we were Italian. I took the typical Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes and was confirmed. In high school, nearly all ...

The Christmas Witch has always been very dear to me. Doubly blest, she would visit me twice during each Christmas season: once at home to fill my shoes, and once by way of a friend. One of my best friends in high school was Lucia Travaglini, and after the Christmas Mass on January 6th, we’d ...

Solemnity of Mary Mother of God, January 1st To many around the world she is known as Mary--the mother of God, the mother of Jesus. She was the girl who God loves, freeing her from the stain of sin. She is the girl whose "yes" changed the face of the world. She said "yes" when others ...

I was not sure what to entitle this post, since it does not directly deal with texts from the canonical Scriptures, hence the subtitle: “Extra-Biblical Context.” At the same time, I wanted to highlight its continuity with the previous four posts on this topic, hence the misleading title: “Papacy in Scripture V.” I hope this ...

As we are running around preparing for the birth of our Savior, I thought I would take a moment to offer a reflection on prayer.  This is a bit of a departure from the series on the papacy that Dr. Jeff Morrow has been posting and my discussion of orthodoxy.   While a departure, I hope that ...

Evangelization is taking new forms through new media and at times we hope to feature good examples of these. I learned recently of a new Facebook application called Face Forward designed by the vocations office of the Diocese of Columbus in Ohio. This app really meets the youth where they are. Fr. Jeff Coning, vocations director for ...

How many times have you heard someone respond to a specific Catholic teaching, say on Mary or on the papacy, with the question, "Where's that in the Bible?" So often the intent of this question is to imply that these Catholic teachings are in fact not found in Scripture, and are therefore not to be believed. But ...