Catholic Church

By Dr. Jeff Mirus, Catholic Culture - Sede vacantism is the theory that the See of Peter is vacant, and that this explains current problems in the papacy and the Church. The attraction of the theory is that it relieves us of the burden of obedience to the alleged pope, who (according to the theory) is not really a pope at all… I thought I had treated this thoroughly in the past, but when I looked back, I found I had only touched the surface of the problem in my 2013 essay, Sede Vacantism: A Conspiracy to Waste Your Time. Since the theory has cropped up again in certain circles—for the fifth time in my lifetime alone!—perhaps I should apply the coup de grace.

By Dr. Kevin Vost, Catholic Exchange - All sins remove our gaze from God and place it on ourselves in one way or another… Through lust we fixate on people’s bodies and remain blind to the souls within them, made in the image and likeness of God… Through gluttony we live to eat, rather than eating to live. Through greed we obsess about obtaining worldly things. Through anger we lash out at those who keep us from our sensuous and worldly goals. Through envy we are saddened by the thought that others may have more things or more fun than we do. Through pride we most directly and deliberately shift our goal from serving God to serving ourselves, doing everything our way.

By Peter J. Leithart, First Things - Dante’s Commedia draws on the tradition of the seven virtues, four “natural” (justice, prudence, temperance, fortitude) and three “theological” (faith, hope, love). This distinction provides the structure of Paradiso, in which Dante ascends through spheres of defective virtue and the four spheres of the natural virtues into the sphere of the fixed stars, where Peter, James, and John catechize him in the theological virtues. Exceptional pagans can achieve natural virtue, but, with very few exceptions, the habits of faith, hope, and love are beyond their capacity.