Jeanie Hannaman

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - Reading the Declaration on Human Dignity (“Infinite Dignity”), issued by the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) yesterday, reminds me of an old teacher-student story. A student submits an assigned essay, and the teacher returns it with the comment, “What you’ve written here is both good and new. Unfortunately, what’s good in it is not new, and what’s new is not. . .” But let’s break off the story there. And following the Christian rule of charity in all things, say of the Declaration, what’s new in it is . . . yet to be determined.

By Raymond J. de Souza, First Things - The eclipse this year falls at the end of the Easter Octave, and Easter is the great liturgical battle between light and darkness. The coincidence of the eclipse and Easter is an invitation to think about light and darkness in the way that Christians distinctively do... The great vigil of Easter makes that clear. The church is dark when the new fire is blessed and the Easter candle is lit. The triplex cry goes up: Christ our Light! The light that comes into the world is not the enduring sun but the eternal Son (John 1:9). The light that enlightens every man is not sunlight, but Christ the light, dramatically apparent as the flame of the Easter candle is passed taper to taper throughout the church.