Jeanie Hannaman

By Jerry Salyer, Catholic World Report - Fr. Robert Spitzer’s Christ, Science, and Reason provides a wealth of argument and documentation while offering a helpful contrast between Christianity and modern liberalism... Fr. Robert Spitzer, S.J., observes in Christ, Science, and Reason that the refutation of those who have denied Jesus’ existence as a historical person may be summed up in a single word: Tacitus. This first-century Roman historian is one of the touchstones of classical studies, and for untold generations, Latin students have been expected to parse excerpts from his Annals–such as the one which confirms the brutal persecutions of early Christians by the mad Emperor Nero.

By Darrick Taylor, Crisis Magazine - I mention these considerations because recent events bring them to mind—in particular, for American Catholics, two recent appointments that have left many shaking their heads. I refer to the recent appointment of Cardinal Robert McElroy of San Diego to the see of Washington, D.C., and the appointment of Sister Simona Brambilla to be prefect of the Dicastery for Religious in the Vatican. Both are noteworthy for the same familiar, depressing, and entirely predictable reasons... There is no defense for the appointment of McElroy, a protégé of the pedophile and criminal Theodore McCarrick, who knew of his mentor’s abuse of seminarians but kept silent.

By Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing - Which brings me, as you may have been waiting for, to the Vatican’s appointment this week of San Diego’s Cardinal Robert McElroy as cardinal archbishop of Washington D.C. There are rumors that previous occupants of that post – including Cardinals Wuerl and Gregory along with the papal nuncio to the United States and several figures in Rome – opposed that appointment... McElroy’s appointment is an oddity. He is a native of California, has spent almost all of his priestly life there (none in Washington), and has no great claim to being the best – or even a good – choice for the new post, other than he’s long been a progressive social justice advocate... If one were given to speculation, it might be thought that Pope Francis was persuaded to appoint him as a counterweight to the return of Donald Trump.