The Catholic Way of Memorials, by Randall Smith

Pope’s Plan to Restrict Traditional Latin Mass Backed by Two Curial Cardinals, by Diane Montagna
June 2, 2021
Daily Scripture Reading and Meditation: You Know Neither the Scriptures nor the Power of God
June 2, 2021

*Image: Jesus with Bread and Wine by Wilhelm List, c. 1905 [private collection]

By Randall Smith, The Catholic Thing, June 2, 2021

Randall B. Smith is a Professor of Theology at the University of St. Thomas. …

Friends: When the first number of The Catholic Thing appeared, thirteen years ago today, the president was named Bush and the pope Benedict, no Papal Posse (which, by the way, will appear again tomorrow at 8 PM on EWTN and Youtube thereafter) existed or was even foreseen. Obama was a cloud on the horizon ….

Randall SmithWe recently celebrated Memorial Day, the day on which we remember the heroic sacrifices made for us by those who served in the military. Fewer and fewer people seem to take this day seriously as anything other than a day off from work: something that provides us a “long weekend.”

Catholics should be especially disposed to respect such memorials, however, for several reasons. First, because Catholics have benefited as much as anyone else from the sacrifices of these men and women, and in certain ways more, since it was by them that their religious freedom was won – a freedom so few people in the world today enjoy. …