New Advent

Pope's ‘urgent’ prayer for January is the homeless...

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On Sunday Pope Francis announced that his “urgent” prayer for the month of January is for all those who live on the streets with no shelter, expecially during the cold winter weather. “During these very cold days, I think of and I invite you to think of all the people who live on the streets, affected by the cold and many times by indifference...

‘Very high’ chance of terror attack on Rome, Italian official fears...

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The possibility of a terrorist attack in Italy is “very high,” warns one of the country’s top civic officials. Franco Gabrielli, the head of Protezione Civile—the office that responds to national emergencies—told Il Giornale that it would be a grave mistake to underestimate the likelihood of a terrorist bombing. “I say this very bluntly: we too will have to pay a price...

The 7 biggest stadiums in the world...

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Don't expect intimate views when you enter one of the world's largest stadiums, but at least you can watch the game with 100,000 of your closest friends. Though you'd expect European soccer stadiums to clean house on a list like this—you'd be wrong. The Beautiful Game can only offer up the 100,000-seat Camp Nou in Spain with Mexico delivering the slightly smaller Estadio Azteca...

‘I thought it was a puppy’: Abandoned baby found at Cathedral of St. Paul in Minnesota...

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A muffled baby’s wail was the first — and most powerful — thing the church custodian remembers. “I miss him already,” Nathan Leonhardt said. “I thought it was a puppy. It’s the last thing I thought it would be was a baby. When I heard it cry, I stood by the door for what felt like 10 seconds.” While on evening closing rounds at the Cathedral of St...

CDF Prefect Cardinal Müller sees no need for 'fraternal correction' of Pope...

null@newadvent.org (Inés San Martín)

The Vatican’s doctrinal czar believes Cardinal Raymond Burke’s threat to issue a “fraternal correction” of Pope Francis is “very remote,” because despite what the American prelate says, the papal document on the family Amoris Laetitia actually is very clear in its doctrine. Speaking about a dubia letter Burke and three other cardinals sent to the pope late in 2016...

Is Keller’s essay really the way Amoris should be read?

null@newadvent.org (Edward Peters)

Apologies for the length of this post. It always takes more time to correct errors than it takes to make them. In Fr. Paul Keller’s CRUX essay, “Case study in communion for the divorced/remarried”, we confront many errors. Keller’s essay illustrates almost perfectly how pastors—reading Pope Francis’ Amoris laetitia in its overall...

Catholic should cherish Fr. Michael Scanlan's role in the renewal of Catholic higher education...

null@newadvent.org (Matthew Bunson)

Father Michael Scanlan, TOR, one of the great figures in modern American Catholicism and president of Franciscan University of Steubenville from 1974 to 2000, died yesterday at the age of 85. There will be many well-deserved tributes and commemorative pieces about him in the coming days, but one aspect of his life and ministry is especially worth remembering – his early struggles as president of the College of Steubenville (as Franciscan University was called before 1980) to restore its financial health but above all to renew its Catholic identity...

Infographic: How long food really lasts in your fridge...

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From HellaWella.com...

5 myths about the papacy that too many people (maybe even you) still believe...

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The papacy is one of the most distinctive aspects of Catholicism. Unfortunately, it’s also one of the most misunderstood. Note that these myths are about the office of the papacy, not myths about a particular pontiff. Here are 5 of the most common myths about the papacy. The first myth is that the pope is always infallible. In truth...

What an Italian bishop saw at his first exorcism...

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Archbishop Erio Castellucci has a response to those who think the devil is not real: “they’re mistaken.” “All you have to do is witness an exorcism to understand that evil is a specific entity, as well as a reality,” he told the Italian daily Il Resto del Carlino. The Archbishop of Modena-Nonantola had seen possessed persons throughout his life...

Is it time to restore the full Psalter to the Liturgy of the Hours?

null@newadvent.org (Msgr. Charles Pope)

One of the great gifts of reading the Liturgy of the Hours (also called the Breviary) faithfully over the years faithfully is that the Scriptures become deeply impressed upon the mind, heart, memory, and imagination. This is especially true of the psalms that are repeated every four weeks, all year long, every year. But there are significant omissions in the modern Breviary...

How Father Michael Scanlan changed my life...

null@newadvent.org (Susanna Spencer)

When I first started at Franciscan University of Steubenville in 2004, Father Michael Scanlan was already a walking legend on campus. He had retired from his role as president just four years previously and spent his days as the chancellor of the college visiting with students, saying Mass, and hearing confessions. When I heard the news this weekend of Father Scanlan’s death...

Father Michael Scanlan was America’s pastor to Catholic higher education...

null@newadvent.org (Patrick Reilly)

Father Michael Scanlan, T.O.R., who died Saturday, reformed Franciscan University of Steubenville and built it into one of America’s most faithful and vibrant centers of Catholic learning. He is rightly acknowledged as a foremost leader in the renewal of Catholic higher education. More than that, I think it is fitting that he be remembered as America’s devoted pastor of Catholic higher education in the 20th century...

Here are some of the earliest color images of life around the world...

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The fantastic ambitions of rich men should never be underestimated. Throw enough cash at something and even a failure can have staying power. When Albert Kahn, a wealthy French banker and philanthropist, decided he wanted to commission a photographic “archive of the planet” he wasn’t joking. And though the idea of cataloging the earth seems whimsical in scope today...

Pro-life atheist Nat Hentoff (1925-2017): We will not see his like again...

null@newadvent.org (null)

We have lost a great writer, civil libertarian, free speech absolutist, jazz historian, and pro-life advocate, Nat Hentoff, who died today at 91. As an atheist, Nat took much heat from his fellow liberals and rigid fundamentalists among the “free thinking” crowd for standing against abortion, euthanasia, and opposing protocols that would leave babies with spina bifida and other disabilities to die without attempts at curative treatment...

Disorder in the Order of Malta...

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The dismissal of a senior figure in the Sovereign Order of Malta over the distribution of contraceptives in parts of the developing world has provoked a serious rift between the Knights of Malta and the Holy See, but one both parties hope will be swiftly resolved. The dispute, which has led to a controversial intervention by the Holy See...

The journey of faith that turned the magi into “wise men”...

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There are so many wonderful details in the Epiphany story: the call of the Gentiles, their enthusiastic response, the significance of the star they seek, the gifts they bring, the dramatic interaction with Herod, and their ultimate rejection of Herod in favor of Christ. In this meditation, I would like to follow these Magi in their journey of faith to become “Wise Men...

If “2 plus 2” can equal “5” in theology, then it can also equal “9” and “catfish”...

null@newadvent.org (Fr. John Zuhlsdorf)

Spadaro ran into a buzz saw with this one, I’m afraid. Go over to CWR and check out Carl Olsen’s demolition of Spadaro’s dreamy antic. Olsen got Spadaro’s unwritten point right away: Fr. Spadaro was apparently trying to make a point about certain theologians who are supposedly too rigid, dogmatic, or scholastic in their approaches to complex or difficult moral situations...

This is what the Earth and Moon look like from Mars...

null@newadvent.org (null)

From the most powerful telescope orbiting Mars comes a new view of Earth and its moon, showing continent-size detail on the planet and the relative size of the moon.

What's the difference between club soda, seltzer, and sparkling water?

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They all sparkle. They all bubble. And they’re all water. But club soda, seltzer, and sparkling water are not interchangeable. Here’s what you need to know the next time you reach for one.

An African cardinal asks a good question: What about Communion for polygamists?

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Cardinal Napier describes a real and pressing question: polygamy is widespread in Africa, and Catholics in the West cannot ignore this. Catholic teaching and practice must be such that they are able to be inculturated in a wide variety of settings. An initiative might go down well in Berlin or Vienna, but how will it play in Peoria...

California funds $100,000 ‘sex reassignment’ surgery for convicted killer serving a life sentence...

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A 57-year-old convicted killer serving a life sentence in California became the first U.S. inmate to receive state-funded sex-reassignment surgery, the prisoner's attorneys confirmed Friday to The Associated Press. California prison officials agreed in August 2015 to pay for the surgery for Shiloh Heavenly Quine, who was convicted of first-degree murder...

Wise men, the nothingness of Eastern religions, and the somethingness of Christianity...

null@newadvent.org (Jason Craig)

A brilliant and valiant teacher named John Senior is continuing to be discovered by those startled by today’s shadowy darkness, especially through a newly published biography. Interestingly, Senior could be described as an apostle of shadows, not because shadows are not real but because they point to the fact that things are real...

Remembering Father Michael Scanlan, TOR...

null@newadvent.org (Tom Perna)

Although my testimony to this great man of God and Catholic priest will not compare to the many others who knew him better than I, I felt the need to write this as soon as possible. My decision to finally take the plunge into the deep waters of Catholicism and attend Franciscan University of Steubenville in Ohio for my Masters in Theology came in the spring of 2008; it was and is the best decision I have made in the last 10 years (which includes taking my dream job and working for my current Pastor)...

For young Mike Scanlan of Harvard and the USAF, God had other plans...

null@newadvent.org (Kathy Schiffer)

Mike Scanlan was a student at Harvard Law School, and he kept a tight schedule: studying hard on six nights each week, then partying on Saturday night, and just making it to Mass on Sunday morning. “When Lent came around,” he said, “I looked around—and I realized that I wasn't really living any differently than all the other students...

Father Michael Scanlan, President Emeritus of Franciscan University of Steubenville, dies at 85...

null@newadvent.org (null)

Father Michael Scanlan, a Third Order Regular Franciscan, president emeritus of Franciscan University of Steubenville and a major figure in the revitalization of Catholicism at the school and in the United States, died the morning of Jan. 7 after a long illness. He was 85 years old. According to Franciscan University spokesman Tom Sofio...

‘If Only’ young people would watch this video from Mark Wahlberg's brother...

null@newadvent.org (Jim Davis)

James Wahlberg is tired of teenagers dying. Especially when the lethal weapons are so often stocked in medicine cabinets at home. He hopes his film, making the rounds of archdiocesan high schools, will prevent a few of those deaths. "Scroll through the obits in newspapers," said Wahlberg, who wrote and produced the film "If Only...

How to bring men to Christ (hint: it involves football)...

null@newadvent.org (Tom Nash)

Given that the NFL playoffs begin on Saturday, and Alabama and Clemson are getting ready to square off again Monday Night in the College Football Playoff Championship, I thought it apropos to address how the Catholic Church can get disaffected or former Catholic men reconnected with the Church. A Pew Research Center survey published in 2015 noted a significant decline of Christians in general in America and of Catholics in particular from 2007 to 2014...

‘My parents haven't spoken in 25 years’: A must-watch parable about sin and prayer...

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“Prayer should not be taken for granted. It is necessary to learn how to pray, as it were acquiring this art ever anew; even those who are very advanced in spiritual life always feel the need to learn from Jesus, to learn how to pray authentically. We receive the first lesson from the Lord by his example. The Gospels describe Jesus to us in intimate and constant conversation with the Father: it is a profound communion of the One who came into the world not to do his will but that of the Father who sent him for the salvation of man...

Spectacular collision of suns will create a new star in the night sky in 2022...

null@newadvent.org (null)

At the beginning of the 3rd century civil war raged in Britain as the Roman emperor Septimius Severus sought to quell unrest in the north. But unknown to the fighting cohorts and Caledonian tribes, high above their heads two stars were coming together in a huge cataclysmic explosion. Now 1800 years later the light from that collision will finally arrive on Earth creating a new star in the night sky - dubbed the ‘Boom Star - in an incredibly rare event which is usually only spotted through telescopes...

Fantasy and reality in the ‘Kasper proposal’...

null@newadvent.org (Phil Lawler)

The debate on Amoris Laetitia has been simmering steadily since my last entry on the subject. Father Raymond de Souza has helped put that debate in perspective, with a clear and compelling summary—easily the best that I have seen—of where the argument now stands. At this point the theoretical arguments for and against the “Kasper proposal” have been explored thoroughly...

Barns are painted red because of the physics of dying stars...

null@newadvent.org (null)

Have you ever noticed that almost every barn you have ever seen is red? There’s a reason for that, and it has to do with the chemistry of dying stars. Seriously. Yonatan Zunger is a Google employee who decided to explain this phenomenon on Google recently. The simple answer to why barns are painted red is because red paint is cheap...

New Year’s wishes for some Catholic brethren...

null@newadvent.org (George Weigel)

he year ahead promises to be a challenging year for the Catholic Church. Thus some new year’s wishes: I wish Catholic progressives a calmer 2017 than they managed in 2016. The last months of the year now fading into the rear-view mirror were marked by an extraordinary number of bilious attacks on those raising questions about Pope Francis’s apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia from the party of dialogue...

Year-beginner for 2017: Sarah Pulliam Bailey, and moi, see more battles over religious liberty...

null@newadvent.org (Terry Mattingly)

Ever since the 1980s, I have been telling editors and journalists that conflicts about religious liberty were going cause some of the biggest news stories on the American horizon. Anyone who has been reading GetReligion since 2004 knows that I've been saying that, over and over. Amen If you listen to this week's "Crossroads" podcast...

The fruits of sleeping around: How sex outside of marriage can leave lasting damage...

null@newadvent.org (David Mills)

That doesn’t make any sense. The more partners, the more baggage. The more partners, the less someone can bind herself tightly to anyone. It’s called “the scotch-tape effect.” You can’t use a piece of scotch tape many times before it stops being sticky. Two is worse than one which is worse than none, but it should be better than three or five or eight...