News

By Fr. George Rutler, Church Militant - I used to dread Ash Wednesday because of the endless lines of people coming for ashes. By the end of the day, priests look like coal miners… Sociologists may condescendingly consider the phenomenon of crowds coming for ashes, when they do not enter a church at other times of the year, a habit of tribal identity. If the mystery of the Holy Trinity, or Christ dying and rising from the dead, confounds limited human intelligence, there is still a spark of the sense that biological life has an end as real as its beginning.

By Fr. Dwight Longenecker - The news broke (about) Jean Vanier, the founder of the L’Arche communities for the disabled, was guilty of manipulative sexual abuse of at least six women over the years. The disappointment and shock is reverberating around the Catholic world because he was considered, along with Mother Teresa, to be a living saint… At the same time the headlines rumble with indignation at the bigotry and misogyny of candidate Bloomberg, the alleged racism of Donald Trump, the sexual abuse trial of Harvey Weinstein and the echoes of the predator Jeffrey Epstein and his various cronies from Prince Andrew down to a whole crew of scurvy pirates.

By Jules Gomes, Church Militant - An Austrian artist notorious for "pushing the boundaries of sculpture" is having his exhibit of an 80-square-meter purple sweater hung over the baroque high altar for Lent at St. Stephen's Cathedral in Vienna… Erwin Wurm's sweater is meant to replicate the purple veil.. used to cover images of Jesus, especially the crucifix.. during the 40 days of Lent… The sweater, weighing a total of 300 kilos and made in Thailand, is designed to convey the message of a "warming and protective second skin" supposedly alerting worshippers to "the priority of warming love of neighbor," the cathedral's website explains.