Jeanie Hannaman

By Anthony Esolen, Crisis Magazine - The Vatican has recently approved of some considerable alterations of the Novus Ordo celebrated in the Mexican diocese of Chiapas. These alterations are put forward as springing from immemorial Mayan traditions. The controversy leads me to think again about what it means to have any kind of culture at all, especially as against the phenomena of the masses, which bid fair to make the world into one great Nowhere... How can you tell Nowhere from Somewhere?

By Jonah McKeown, CNA - “Immaculate” is not a word most people would use to describe the Mississippi River’s famously muddy waters. But Father Jacques Marquette was not most people... The Jesuit explorer, who came from France as a missionary to Canada in 1666, was one of the first Europeans to name the Mississippi, which he explored and mapped with his companion Louis Joliet beginning in 1673. And the name he gave to this vital artery of North America was “The River of the Immaculate Conception.”

By Andrea Gagliarducci, Catholic News Agency - The number of cardinal electors is the most critical data point to emerge from this weekend’s consistory. Of the 140 cardinal electors, 110 have been created by Pope Francis, 24 by Benedict XVI, and six by St. John Paul II. At the end of the year, on December 24, Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, created cardinal by Benedict XVI in 2007, will reach 80 years of age and will, therefore, no longer be able to participate in a conclave.

By Mark Miravalle, Catholic Exchagne - The Immaculate Conception is not the virgin birth. I want to make that abundantly clear at the beginning, since many people get confused on that point. The dogma of the Immaculate Conception does not say that Jesus’ conception was “immaculate” because it didn’t involve sex, which is another common misconception I encounter... All to say: the conception that was “immaculate” was Mary’s, not Christ’s.