New Advent

'Exorcist' author William Peter Blatty organizes canonical action against Georgetown's dissident Jesuits...
Georgetown University alumni, students and others are preparing a canon law suit to be filed with the Archdiocese of Washington and the Vatican, seeking remedies “up to and including the possible removal or suspension of top-ranked Georgetown’s right to call itself Catholic or Jesuit in its fundraising and representations to applicants.” The effort is being led by the distinguished Georgetown alumnus William Peter Blatty, who won an Academy Award for his screenplay and book The Exorcist and has been honored by Georgetown with its John Carroll Medal for alumni achievement.
CDF report on SSPX officially delivered to the Pope...
In the course of the usual Friday afternoon meeting between the Holy Father and the Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF), Cardinal Levada delivered officially today to the Pope the report of the Congregation's Wednesday meeting on the aftermath of the doctrinal discussions between the Society of Saint Pius X (SSPX) and the Holy See.
Three tensions beneath the latest Vatican dispute...
Armchair Vaticanologists everywhere grasp that all departments of the Holy See may be created equal, but when it comes to real-world influence, some are obviously more equal than others. Near the bottom of the pile are the pontifical academies, which are scholarly bodies devoted to topics such as the sciences, Mariology, the fine arts and archeology. Even the most seasoned Vatican-watcher probably would struggle to tick off all 11 of these outfits. (Try it yourself, right now, without looking). No disrespect intended, but the academies tend to be populated by eggheads invested in somewhat arcane questions, and their debates, while...
Answering the question of suffering, without using words...
Earlier this week someone asked me how to address the issue of suffering when chatting with atheists. I was a guest on Catholic Answers Live, and a caller explained that he had been trying to reach out to an atheist acquaintance who was particularly troubled by the issue of suffering. Whenever the subject of faith would come up, his atheist friend would cite atrocities like rape or murder or child abuse, and he would ask, "Where is your God when people suffer?"
High-profile ouster in China points to battle between reformists, hard-liners
First came the purge of Bo Xilai, a rising star in the Communist Party who fell into disgrace just before he was expected to join the inner circle of power in China. Now a sitting member of that omnipotent club – the Standing Committee of the Politburo – has reportedly been stripped of his main authorities.
What is the significance of a novena? Why nine days? Why not ten or forty or three?
Before Christ ascended into heaven, he commanded his Apostles to remain in the city of Jerusalem for the nine days until the feast of Pentecost, and there to await the descent of the Holy Spirit. With this, our Savior instituted the practice of the Christian Novena – nine days of prayer, especially in preparation for a solemn feast or in petition for some special grace. Christ Jesus commanded this first novena both as a period of preparation (since the feast of Pentecost was approaching) and also as an act of petition (for the Apostles, together with Mary, were pleading for...
Help! There’s a Mennonite in me...
You have to understand that I have a Mennonite in me. I can’t help it. He lurks there in his black hat and chin beard watching me and nodding knowingly. He’s one of my ancestors. They were all Mennonites and Amish and various sorts of Pennsylvania Protestants. Go to Pennsylvania Dutch country today and see how many Longeneckers there are in the phone book. You’ll only find more in Zurich Switzerland where they all came from to start with.
LOL Books
Gosh, I'm ready for some light reading. The books stacked up on the baby bed (why not? The baby doesn't sleep there. The baby doesn't sleep at all!) are all great, but they are not exactly a laugh riot. I finished Kristin Lavransdatter, and then Love in the Ruins, and am still muscling my way through The Brothers Karamazov (and I'll be darned if Ivan hasn't grown on me tremendously since last time!). Okay, Love in the Ruins was breathtakingly funny, but in a way that makes you want to go live in a cave in Tennessee. Oh, I also...
"New signs of vitality and hope": For the U.S. Church, the Pope's last word...
Six months since its start, eight years since the last go-round, the ad limina visit of the US bishops to Rome -- the first of B16's pontificate -- has reached its close. This morning, the final group to make the pilgrimage -- the country's Eastern hierarchs, now teamed up as a region of their own -- provided the audience for the last of the five papal speeches directed to the American church, its focus on immigration and ecclesial unity, with an eye to the Year of Faith beginning in October on the 50th anniversary of the opening of Vatican II.
Thin Places and the New Evangelization
Thin place. That’s a phrase the Welsh use to describe a place where grace has seemingly worn thin the veil between time and eternity, a place where the sacred has so thoroughly imbued the material world, that it’s easier to feel closer to God, closer to Heaven, there. Part fairy tale, part a glimpse of Heaven. That's the Kartause Maria Thron in Gaming, Austria. I’ve been blessed to travel to many “thin places” in my life, but one of the thinnest of all has been Gaming, Austria.