Defending the Faith

ONE OF THE FIRST SHOWS about Christmas I watched as a kid was A Charlie Brown Christmas. I haven’t watched it in years, but I haven’t forgotten the culminating scene where Charlie Brown shouts above the noise to demand an answer to a question he’s struggling with: What is Christmas... Read more

Judge Sara Smolenski, Chief Judge of the 63rd District Court in Kent County, Michigan, was recently advised by her pastor, Father Scott Nolan, that she should not receive Holy Communion because she claimed to enter into a “marriage” with a woman. He did this privately, but she chose to make... Read more

On Dec. 4 we celebrate St. John of Damascus. He was a priest, a religious, and he is a doctor of the Church. He’s also the last Church Father. Here are 7 things to know and share...   1) Why is he the last of the Church Fathers? We need to divide history into... Read more

Gay Marriage and Communion A few days ago, Fr. Scott Nolan, pastor of St. Stephen’s Catholic Church,  picked up his phone knowing he had to make a difficult phone call.  Any priest would recognize the dilemma.  Fr. Nolan had to tell a prominent, Mass-going, practicing Catholic Judge, Sara... Read more

The Vatican said Wednesday that an Italian journalist it has previously corrected was not speaking accurately when he claimed that Pope Francis denied Christ’s divinity. "As already stated on other occasions, the words that Dr. Eugenio Scalfari attributes in quotation marks to the Holy... Read more

In the Acts of the Apostles, one of the earliest issues the Church had to confront was the admission of Gentile converts into the Christian faith (cf. Acts 15). There were differing views regarding whether converts needed to abide by the law of Moses and be circumcised first in order to become a... Read more

Out on the Kansas plains, he was just turning 21 when the Second Vatican Council promulgated its Dogmatic Constitution on the Church (Lumen Gentium) and its Decree on the Pastoral Office of the Bishops in the Church (Christus Dominus). So it’s unlikely that the Fathers of Vatican II had... Read more

Brebeuf Jesuit Preparatory School in Indianapolis announced this week that the Vatican has suspended a decree prohibiting the school from calling itself Catholic. The announcement has led to speculation and debate about the likely outcome for an appeal filed against the decree. But the canonical... Read more

Perhaps it was because Notre-Dame de Paris was burning. Perhaps it was because the best place to hide something from view is in plain sight.  Or perhaps it was because we look for power in wind, earthquake, and fire, but miss the “still small voice” of God when He passes by. (1 Kgs... Read more

James Carroll, the author of this month’s Atlantic’s cover story, “Abolish the Priesthood,” is famous in certain Catholic circles for his bitter denunciations of the Church. To the well-documented renunciation of his own priesthood years ago, Carroll now adds the claim that, by its very... Read more