How many major music festivals have you been to that were dedicated to the Infant of Prague? If your answer is “zero,” then cancel your plans this Labor Day Weekend and come to see The Hillbilly Thomists perform at DC’s … Continue reading
New Evangelization
The Actor-Martyr and Film
A New Series: Faith and Film Friday Has the screen taken over our culture? Perhaps we are not yet in a complete dystopian future in which every person’s reality is virtual, but with Netflix, Amazon, and YouTube making movies and … Continue reading
Open Wide Those Doors
Forty years ago today, a clarion call rang from the celebrant’s chair in Saint Peter’s Square: “Do not be afraid. Open, I say open wide the doors for Christ!” With those resounding words—so familiar now to myriad Catholics across the … Continue reading
Short-Term Evangelization
“Let us offer each other the sign of peace.” The amphitheater housing thousands of high school-aged teens erupts in a joyful rumble of handshakes, hugs, and hubbub. The kiss of peace lasts a good five minutes before the sound of … Continue reading
How to Talk About Homosexuality
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on August 6, 2014. Fr. Gabriel Torretta was ordained a priest in 2015 and now serves as a parochial vicar. How do we talk about homosexuality? Christians are caught on the horns of … Continue reading
Beauty That Makes You Want to Believe
Editor’s note: This post was originally published on April 24, 2013. At the reception of a Catholic wedding I lately attended, a groomsman made his way over to the table where a priest and I were sitting. After enthusiastically shaking … Continue reading
Love’s Hatred
Some Christians have misgivings about the slogan “Love the sinner; hate the sin.” For them, the slogan seems “judgmental” and, therefore, fundamentally unchristian. I can understand a certain amount of suspicion. We don’t want to turn into fault-finders or to … Continue reading
Should We Preach to the Choir?
We don’t know how to agree with people we agree with. We are reminded daily that our country is riven by disagreements and that we have little hope of crossing the many cultural, political, moral, and religious divides. It’s perhaps … Continue reading
The Shackles of Love
In the 2007 movie Juno, a married man waiting to adopt a child gets cold feet. He not only backs out of the adoption, but he also leaves his wife. While he’s working toward this decision, he laments that his … Continue reading