Jeanie Hannaman

By James Kalb, Catholic World Report - Recent trends in America point toward either tribalism or social disintegration. There is no neat solution to the problem. Still, the Church will be in a position to help mitigate it—not directly, through social engagement of some sort, but simply by being emphatically herself so she can once again be an object of strong and socially functional loyalties that transcend tribal boundaries.

By Fr. Nnamdi Moneme, OMV, Catholic Exchange - A prelate gave a homily some weeks ago about widespread corruption in the government. His homily irritated some of his audience who took to social media to remind him that the Catholic Church too had its own issues of rampant corruption among her clergy. One commentator even cited the ongoing fraud, corruption, and coverup in the Vatican bank. Another commentator questioned the right of the bishop to call out corrupt politicians while ignoring the rot among the priests in his own diocese. In short, the bishop’s wise words about corruption were lost because of the unchecked moral and financial corruption in the Church.

By Francis X. Maier, The Catholic Thing - Every few years, I reread a couple of my favorite authors.  George Orwell, despite his disdain for things Catholic, has always been on my list.  This time I paid special attention to his essay, “The Principles of Newspeak.” He appended it to his dystopian novel 1984.  As Orwell noted in his text, Newspeak – the language of Oceania’s Airstrip One (formerly the UK) – had three distinct vocabularies; A, B, and C.  The B vocabulary “had been deliberately constructed for political purposes.”  Its words “had, in every sense, a political implication.”  They were designed to impose a desired mental attitude upon the user.