famous catholic essays

It was 1926 when the mirthful, insightful British writer G. K. Chesterton penned these words.  And he meant them.  Because four years earlier, in his 48th year, Chesterton became a Catholic.  After being raised in an ostensibly Unitarian household dedicated more to living the golden rule than worshiping the Triune God, Chesterton felt the tug, began to listen and then became fond of the Catholic Church.  But what did he find? What did Chesterton encounter once within the Church he described as "larger on the inside than it is on the outside." And what exactly made this brilliant and enlightened thinker join an institution maligned as being outdated and dogmatic?

In his 1926 essay, Why I Am a Catholic , Chesterton would tell us.

The difficulty of explaining "why I am a Catholic" is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.  I could fill all my space with separate sentences each beginning with the words, "It is the only thing that ..." As, for instance, (1) It is the only thing that really prevents a sin from being a secret.  (2) It is the only thing in which the superior cannot be superior, in the sense of supercilious.  (3) It is the only thing that frees a man from the degrading slavery of being a child of his age.  (4) It is the only thing that talks as if it were the truth; as if it were a real messenger refusing to tamper with a real message ... The Church does often set herself against the fashion of this world that passes away; and she has experience enough to know how very rapidly it does pass away ... Nine out of ten of what we call new ideas are simply old mistakes.  The Catholic Church has for one of her chief duties that of preventing people from making those old mistakes; from making them over and over again forever, as people always do if they are left to themselves ... The difficulty of explaining "why I am a Catholic" is that there are ten thousand reasons all amounting to one reason: that Catholicism is true.  There is no other case of one continuous intelligent institution that has been thinking about thinking for two thousand years.  Its experience naturally covers nearly all experiences; and especially nearly all errors.  The result is a map in which all the blind alleys and bad roads are clearly marked, all the ways that have been shown to be worthless by the best of all evidence: the evidence of those who have gone down them. ... But [the Church] does definitely take the responsibility of marking certain roads as leading nowhere or leading to destruction, to a blank wall, or a sheer precipice.  By this means, it does prevent men from wasting their time or losing their lives upon paths that have been found futile or disastrous again and again in the past, but which might otherwise entrap travelers again and again in the future.  The Church does make herself responsible for warning her people against these; and upon these the real issue of the case depends.  She does dogmatically defend humanity from its worst foes, those hoary and horrible and devouring monsters of the old mistakes ... Now there is no other corporate mind in the world that is thus on the watch to prevent minds from going wrong.  The policeman comes too late when he tries to prevent men from going wrong.  The doctor comes too late, for he only comes to lock up a madman, not to advise a sane man on how not to go mad ... Every moment increases for us the moral necessity for such an immortal mind.  We must have something that will hold the four corners of the world still ...

G. K. Chesterton found that "something": The enduring truth, the exhilarating goodness and the ineffable beauty of the Catholic Church.  And he found it by being fair to it.

What a novel idea.

To read Why I Am a Catholic in full, please visit this link  to the American Chesterton Society.

Additional Info

• Author: Tod Worner

Tod Worner. "G. K. Chesterton on 'Why I Am a Catholic'" A Catholic Thinker (March 25, 2016).

Reprinted with permission from the author, Tod Worner. 

• Publisher: Tod Worner

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Lessons Learned from Great Apologists

G. K. Chesterton once wrote, “Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors.” It is a thought applicable to the art of apologetics, for there are numerous and valuable lessons to be learned from those who have gone before us in defending the faith. What follows is a brief look at lessons learned from five great modern apologists.

John Henry Cardinal Newman (1801-1890): The Lessons of History

Newman set out to write a definitive work that would cement the Anglican position and show the falsehood of Rome’s claims. But his intense studies revealed instead the unthinkable: The Catholic Church was the one, true Church of Christ. In 1845, having resigned his position in the Anglican church, Newman began writing  The Development of Christian Doctrine,  a masterful study of the teachings of the early Church during its first few centuries. In 1847 he was ordained a priest in the Catholic Church. His conversion caused a sensation throughout England, a country still deeply anti-Catholic at the time. He was attacked by many former friends and by the press. In particular, a certain anti-Catholic writer, Charles Kingsley, began to malign Newman. In 1864 Newman responded to Kingsley’s attacks by writing  Apologia Pro Vita Sua,  a towering apologetic of his conversion and of the Catholic faith.

In large part it was Newman’s study of history and the Church Fathers that convinced him of the Catholic Church’s rightful claim as the true Church. He wrote:

“History is not a creed or catechism; it gives lessons rather than rules. Still, no one can mistake its general teaching in this matter, whether he accept it or stumble at it. Bold outlines and broad masses of color rise out of the records of the past. They may be dim, they may be incomplete, but they are definite. And this one thing at least is certain: Whatever history teaches, whatever it omits, whatever it exaggerates or extenuates, whatever it says and unsays, at least the Christianity of history is not Protestantism. If ever there were a safe truth, it is this.

“And Protestantism has ever felt it so. . . . This is shown in the determination already referred to of dispensing with historical Christianity altogether and of forming a Christianity from the Bible alone: Men never would have put it aside, unless they had despaired of it. . . . Our popular religion scarcely recognizes the fact of the twelve long ages that lie between the councils of Nicea and Trent, except as offering one or two passages to illustrate its wild interpretations of certain prophecies of St. Paul and St. John. . . . To be deep in history is to cease to be Protestant.” ( The Development of Christian Doctrine  [Longmans, Green, and Co., Inc., 1949], 7).

The Catholic apologist need never fear the facts of history or the writings of the Church Fathers. They need to be embraced and studied and learned. They are allies who are like drops of water dripping into a vast reservoir of truth, available to those who take the time to carefully study and ponder what is there. That is one of many lessons to be learned from Cardinal Newman.

G. K. (Gilbert Keith) Chesterton (1874-1936): The Balance of Paradox

G. K. Chesterton was perhaps the most quotable, entertaining, and diverse Catholic writer of this century. Novelist, essayist, poet, playwright, literary critic, and mystery writer, Chesterton was also a powerful and original apologist. Many converts to the Church in this century owe a debt of gratitude to him.

Chesterton’s trademark-which his readers revel in and his detractors dislike-is his use of paradox. He had uncanny ability to turn the opponent’s argument or premise upside down and inside out, resulting in keen insights. In  Orthodoxy,  in a chapter titled “The Paradoxes of Christianity,” the unique and mysterious nature of Christianity is shown through the lens of its enemies’ contradictory criticisms:

“As I read and re-read all the non-Christian or anti-Christian accounts of the faith . . . a slow and awful impression grew gradually but graphically upon my mind: the impression that Christianity must be a most extraordinary thing. For not only (as I understood) had Christianity the most flaming vices, but it had apparently a mystical talent for combining vices that seemed inconsistent with each other. It was attacked on all sides and for all contradictory reasons. No sooner had one rationalist demonstrated that it was too far to the east than another demonstrated with equal clearness that it was much too far to the West. No sooner had my indignation died down at its angular and aggressive squareness than I was called up again to notice and condemn its enervating and sensual roundness” ( Orthodoxy  [Image Books, 1990], 84-85).

This radical balance of Christianity would be a reoccurring theme in Chesterton’s apologetic writings. While a heresy is the belief that a narrow portion of the truth is the whole truth (i.e., Arianism taught that Jesus was true man), orthodoxy is capable of holding seemingly opposing views in a paradoxical balance (i.e., Jesus is true man and true God). This feature of orthodoxy is a most helpful touchstone for the apologist in recognizing doctrinal error. Orthodoxy is always balanced despite the leanings and weaknesses of the era the Catholic lives in:

“This is the thrilling romance of orthodoxy. People have fallen into a foolish habit of speaking of orthodoxy as something heavy, humdrum, and safe. There never was anything so perilous or so exciting as orthodoxy. It was sanity: And to be sane is more dramatic than to be mad. It was the equilibrium of a man behind madly rushing horses, seeming to stoop this way and to sway that, yet in every attitude having the grace of statuary and the accuracy of arithmetic. The Church in its early days went fierce and fast with any warhorse; yet it is utterly unhistorical to say that she merely went mad along one idea, like a vulgar fanaticism. She swerved to left and right, so exactly as to avoid enormous obstacles. She left on one hand the huge bulk of Arianism, buttressed by all the worldly powers to make Christianity too worldly. The next instant she was swerving to avoid an orientalism, which would have made it too unworldly. . . . It is always easy to let the age have its head; the difficult thing is to keep one’s own. It is always easy to be a modernist as it is easy to be a snob. To have fallen into any of those open traps of error and exaggeration which fashion after fashion and sect after sect set along the historic path of Christendom-that would indeed have been simple. It is always simple to fall; there are an infinity of angles at which one falls, only one at which one stands” ( Orthodoxy,  100-101).

Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957): The Necessity of Consistency

Fr. Ronald Knox was the son of the Anglican bishop of Manchester, and it appeared he would also have a successful life as an Anglican prelate. But in 1917, four years after being ordained in the Church of England, Knox became a Catholic; two years later he was ordained a priest.

Knox was a prose stylist of immense talent whose sharp wit and biting satire poked holes in the smug secularism of his day. In books such as  Essays in Satire  and  Caliban in Grub Street  he mocked the dogma-lite Christianity, shallow agnosticism, and glib atheism so popular among the elite classes of England. He also wrote murder mysteries (as did Chesterton), translated the Bible over a nine-year period (the Knox Version) and wrote  Enthusiasm , a fascinating history of enthusiast movements (such as Montanism and Quietism) in Christianity.

Knox had a gift for distilling complex matters into understandable and compelling language, and his wry humor makes his writing that much more enjoyable. He pointed out the logical fallacies of Protestant assumptions and beliefs, something he knew of firsthand. In  The Belief of Catholics,  in a chapter titled “Where Protestantism Goes Wrong,” he demonstrated that how one views the Church will either make or break the basis of their view of Christ, the Bible, and authority:

“A proper notion of the Church is a necessary stage before we argue from the authority of Christ to any other theological doctrine whatever. The infallibility of the Church is, for us, the true induction from which all our theological conclusions are derived. The Protestant, stopping short of it, has to rest content with an induction of the false kind; and the vice of that false kind of induction is that all its conclusions are already contained in its premises. Perhaps formal logic is out of date; let me restate the point otherwise. We derive from our apprehension of the living Christ the apprehension of a living Church; it is from that living Church that we take our guidance. Protestantism claims to take its guidance immediately from the living Christ. But what is the guidance he gives us, and where are we to find it?” ( The Belief of Catholics  [Image, 1958], 104-105).

The Protestant claim that it is the Bible that guides them and provides the final say in matters of their faith is inconsistent and cannot stand in the face of reason:

“In fact . . . the Protestant had no conceivable right to base any arguments on the inspiration of the Bible, for the inspiration of the Bible was a doctrine that had been believed, before the Reformation, on the mere authority of the Church; it rested on exactly the same basis as the doctrine of transubstantiation. Protestantism repudiated transubstantiation and in doing so repudiated the authority of the Church; and then, without a shred of logic, calmly went on believing in the inspiration of the Bible, as if nothing had happened! Did they suppose that Biblical inspiration was a self-evident fact, like the axioms of Euclid?” ( The Belief of Catholics,  106).

This is an important point to keep in mind when talking with those who believes in  sola scriptura : Not only does the Bible itself not teach this doctrine, the doctrine itself ignores the historical facts as to how we got the Bible and by whose authority the canon has been set. The Catholic faith demands of a Bible believer all or nothing. If someone accepts the authority of Scripture, it can be shown that they must also accept the authority of the Church-anything else is inconsistent.

C. S. Lewis (1898-1963): Seeing Christ Clearly

C. S. Lewis is undoubtedly the most widely read and best-known Christian author of this century. Like Chesterton, he was a writer with tremendous range, writing a best-selling children’s series-the chronicles of Narnia-plus books and essays about medieval literature, contemporary education, literary criticism, and apologetics.

One of Lewis’s many talents was an ability to powerfully convey the deeper truths of the Christian faith with uncommon clarity and in a lively style. He understood the thinking and objections of unbelievers and met them on their ground, using their standards of empirical proof and rational thinking in combating them.

Like Chesterton, Lewis was a self-described agnostic as a teenager. In his autobiographical work  Surprised by Joy , Lewis remarked on the profound influence that Chesterton’s  Everlasting Man  had on him while he was still an agnostic. In reading it, Lewis wrote he “for the first time saw the whole Christian outline of history set out in a form that seemed to me to make sense. Somehow I contrived not to be too badly shaken” ( Surprised By Joy  [Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1956], 223).

After he entered the Anglican church in 1931, Lewis went on to write dozens of books and essays on Christianity, including the classic  Mere Christianity.  In it he put forth the argument that the man Jesus Christ could have been only one of three things: Lord, liar, or lunatic:

“I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about him: ‘I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God.’ That is the one thing we must not say. A man who is merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic-on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg-or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God: or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon; or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronizing nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to” ( Mere Christianity  [Touchstone, 1996], 56).

In dealing with a non-Christian, the topic must finally turn to the person of Jesus Christ; otherwise the apologist is arguing about peripherals and not the heart of the faith. Be assured that in speaking of Christ you will hear variations of the “Jesus was a great man, but . . .” argument that Lewis addressed so well. By showing people what Jesus really said and really did you can begin to undercut the “great teacher” stance, more popular today than ever. It also helps to deal with the common belief that Jesus is just one of many possible ways to heaven. Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father, but through me” (John 14:6). Either it was true, or he was lying, or he was insane. There are no other alternatives.

Frank J. Sheed (1897-1981): Sacraments Reflect the Incarnation

Frank Sheed was an Australian law student who, after moving to London in the 1920s, became one of the most famous Catholic apologists of the century. He was an outstanding street-corner speaker who popularized the Catholic Evidence Guild in both England and America (where he later resided). Along with his wife Maisie Ward he founded the well-known Catholic publishing house of Sheed & Ward.

Sheed wrote several books, the best known being  Theology and Sanity, A Map of Life, Theology for Beginners , and  To Know Christ Jesus . All of his writing possessed a rare erudition and comprehensive g.asp of Catholic doctrine.  Theology and Sanity  is a particularly helpful work for the apologist since every part of it had been, Sheed states, “tried out on forty or fifty outdoor audiences before I got it down on paper” ( Theology and Sanity  [Ignatius Press, orig. publish date 1946], 9). The result is an enjoyable and filling theological meal, served with the natural ease and clarity that mark Sheed’s writing.

One topic that Sheed repeatedly emphasized is the balanced perspective we need to have of the material and spiritual realm. This is particularly important in explaining the sacraments to non-Catholics and poorly catechized Catholics. Many people (i.e., Fundamentalists and New Agers) downplay or even condemn man’s physical nature, while others (secularists and hedonists) live as though their physical desires and impulses are of the utmost importance. But Catholic teaching claims the whole man is called to worship and to communion with God:

“Religion is the act of man-the whole man, soul and body. It is not the act of the soul only, for man is not only soul. . . . The supernatural does not ignore the natural or substitute something else for it. It is built upon or built into the natural. Sanctifying grace does not provide us with a new soul; it enters into the soul we already have. Nor does it give the soul new faculties but elevates the faculties that are already there, giving intellect and will new powers of operation. God-as-Sanctifier does not destroy or bypass the work of God-as-Creator. What God has created, God sanctifies” ( Theology and Sanity,  300-301).

God uses material elements such as wine, bread, and water to convey supernatural life, or grace. He meets us where we are, as people composed of bodies and souls. “The sacramental principle, continually reminding man of his body, will keep his feet firmly planted upon the ground and destroy pride in its strongest root; sanctifying his body will make it the fit partner of a soul indwelt by God. The giving of supernatural life by way of sacrament, then, corresponds with the structure of man” ( Theology and Sanity,  301).

The link between the Incarnation, our human nature, and the sacraments is critical in speaking with Protestants. By emphasizing that humans are not just disembodied spirits, but also flesh and blood-just as our Savior was also flesh and blood-we can begin to point them towards a fuller appreciation of all that God has done for us: He “emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant . . . being made in the likeness of men” (Phil. 2:7).

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The Catholic Collection: 734 Catholic Essays and Novels on Authentic Catholic Teaching

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THE CATHOLIC COLLECTION: 734 CATHOLIC ESSAYS AND NOVELS ON AUTHENTIC CATHOLIC TEACHING CATHOLIC WAY PUBLISHING

— 734 Catholic Essays and Novels, every around 7,000 Words — Over 5.5 Million Words, equivalent to 500 Full Length Books — Books by Saints, Priests, Pope’s and people from all walks of life

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Note: Use the Look Inside feature to view the list of 734 Books and Authors and 10% of this Collection.

Included is this Collection are 734 Catholic Essays and Novels on all areas of life. If you wish to read about the Saints, look no further. Interested in Catholic Moral teaching? It’s here. Taking a look to sharpen your Apologetics, this will assist you to. Wanting to foster devotion to the Blessed Virgin? There are a large number of Essays on Mary. There may be Christian Fiction!

Also included is indispensable advice for pilgrims at the path to perfection; Indulgences, Papal Authority, Famous Shrines, Catholic Fiction, Meditations, Prayers, Novenas, the Sacraments and much, a lot more.

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Highlight in this Collection are:

FATIMA AND FIVE SATURDAYS By Rev. F. P. O’Shea, C.SS.R. FRIENDSHIP by Saint Francis de Sales HOW TO PRAY AT ALL TIMES by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori A NOVENA OF THE HOLY SPIRIT by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

IN THE LITTLE WAY OF SAINT THERESE OF LISIEUX by Saint Therese of Lisieux HAVE YOU RELIGION IN YOUR HEART? by Saint John Mary Vianney THE SERMONS OF SAINT JOHN MARY VIANNEY by Saint John Mary Vianney CHRIST OR BARABBAS? Daniel A. Lord, S. J.

DAILY DEVOTIONS TO SAINT JOSEPH by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori REFUTING ERRORS CONCERNING THE MOST HOLY SACRAMENT OF THE EUCHARIST by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori DEVOTION TO THE HOLY FACE OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST Compiled by A Member of The Ursuline Community PURGATORY by Father Faber

MARY, THE MOTHER OF CHRIST By Father Clement Beck, S. V. D. NOVENAS TO OUR LADY OF MT. CARMEL, OUR LADY OF FATIMA, AND SAINT JOSEPH By Rev Daniel A. Lord S. J. OUR LADY OF FATIMA by Rev. Bernard O’Connor CONFIDENCE IN PRAYER by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

MEDITATIONS ON THE PASSION OF OUR LORD by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori PADRE PIO, WHO IS PADRE PIO? by Laura Chanler White DAILY THOUGHTS FROM THE LITTLE FLOWER By Rev. Francis Broome, C.S.P. GETHSEMANE by Fr. Pichon S.J.

HOW TO TALK TO GOD by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori ADVICE TO PARENTS by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori HILAIRE BELLOC by Karl G. Schmude SAINT PHILOMENA by Annonymous

MARY SPOUSE OF THE HOLY GHOST By Monsignor John T. McMahon, M.A. LISTENING TO OUR LORD BY Ceile Dé THE CATHOLIC FAITH by Annonymous THAT JESUS CHRIST IS GOD by Saint Alphonsus de Liguori

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A guide to resources in apologetics, including two new ones

By Dr. Jeff Mirus ( bio - articles - email ) | Sep 21, 2021 | In Reviews

I have always liked apologetics, or the rational defense of the Catholic Faith. At times this can include not only Catholic principles of faith and morals but Catholic practices which seem bizarre to those outside the fold. One of the most convenient sources for clear explanations and defenses of what Catholics believe is Catholic Answers , founded by Karl Keating back in 1979. A year earlier I had joined three other founding faculty at Christendom College to write and publish a basic apologetics text called Reasons for Hope . In fact, the late 1970s saw a revival of Catholic apologetics, which had essentially disappeared in the cultural and religious upheaval of the previous decade.

In 1983, while still at Christendom, I also published a booklet called “Apologetics: Forgotten Science, Lost Art”. This booklet and Reasons for Hope are now out of print, but both the booklet and some of the chapters of the book have been added to our library on CatholicCulture.org:

• The Resurrection and Divinity of Christ (Jeff Mirus)
• The Foundation and Identity of the Church (Jeff Mirus)
• The Authority of the Pope (Jeff Mirus)
• The Divine Character of the Church in History (Warren H. Carroll)
• Apologetics: Forgotten Science, Lost Art (Jeff Mirus, booklet on the nature of apologetics)

When I founded Trinity Communications in 1985 and began to publish books under that name (ultimately unsuccessfully), some of the titles were oriented toward the direct defense of the faith. When we reinvented ourselves as the website that eventually became CatholicCulture.org, a good deal of my earliest writing online addressed the objections of non-believers, non-Catholics and dissident Catholics. Many of these essays are collected in the following three volumes of our ebook series (downloadable free for registered users), and though I listed these and a few others in Top intellectual approaches to unbelievers back in May, I will include the first three again here:

• Essays on Apologetics, Vol. I. Preliminary Topics: The Human Response to Truth
• Essays in Apologetics, Vol. II. Arguments Directed to Non-Catholics
• Essays in Apologetics, Vol. III. Quarrels within the Church

Again, I am very interested in apologetics, which not only continues to clear away many obstacles to Faith today, but also has its own history as a discipline. If you want to delve deeply into this aspect of it, I can recommend the fine book by Avery Cardinal Dulles entitled A History of Apologetics , which was originally published academically in 1971, later published more widely by Wipf and Stock in 1999, and happily republished, and still available, in a new edition by Ignatius Press in 2005.

The work continues apace as most authentically Catholic publishing houses try to defuse the gross misunderstandings of Catholicism (and even the mischaracterizations from within) which seem to increase rather than diminish as the West spins ever further into secularism. Of course, apologetics in itself is designed to clear away the obstacles to belief, so that those with concerns and questions about Christ and the Church can become more open to evangelization , which (taken in full) is the proclamation of the mercy, love and redemption offered to all by Jesus Christ through His body the Church. And both evangelization and apologetics must be further distinguished from catechesis , which is simply the teaching of the Catholic faith to those who wish to learn more about it, either to enter the Church or to become better Catholics.

Obviously, all three are frequently mixed together, and with good reason. In any case, St. Peter advised the first Christians to “always be prepared to make a defense to any one who calls you to account for the hope that is in you, yet do it with gentleness and reverence” (1 Pet 3:15). In saying this, he was talking primarily about apologetics—which is why I entitled that early apologetics text “Reasons for Hope”.

Because of my continuing interest, I tend to notice when new apologetics books are released. Two closely-related titles which have just appeared are Fr. Carter Griffin’s Cross-Examined: Catholic Responses to the World’s Questions , from Emmaus Road Publishing; and Web of Faith: A Curious Catholic’s Answers to Theological Questions by Fr. Ken Brighenti and Fr. John Trigilio, published by EWTN. Both books take a distinctly topical approach to their subjects, and all three authors have contemporary confusion (and even hostility) about the questions they answer clearly in mind.

Cross-Examined

Fr. Griffin, who is now rector of the St. John Paul II Seminary in Washington, DC, has deliberately chosen twenty-five hot-button topics in the culture today and tried to treat them adequately but succinctly in the space of two to five pages. He uses a classic scholastic approach (if you have ever read any of the Summa Theologiae of St. Thomas Aquinas, you’ll recognize the method). He begins each topic with a question, then poses several objections which suggest that the question cannot be answered in a way that supports the Catholic position. He then states Church teaching on this question, and finally responds to all the objections. The result is a strong argument that the Catholic answer is actually correct.

Thus, for example, the first three questions in the book are “How can we know that God exists?”, “Was the Resurrection a literal, historical event?”, and “Why do Catholics pray to the saints?” In fact, the number of topics is sufficiently manageable to list all of them here, always remembering that each topic is introduced with a question which demands an explanation and defense of the correct answer. The book is divided into three sections.

God and Eternity

• Existence of God
• Resurrection
• Praying to the Saints
• Marian Devotion

Church and Sacraments

• Priestly Celibacy
• Papal Infallibility
• Sola Scriptura
• Assisted Suicide
• Contraception
• In Vitro Fertilization
• Animal Rights
• Capital Punishment (on this question, arguments for and against are explored)
• Gender Dysphoria
• Pornography
• Same-Sex Attraction
• Same-Sex “Marriage”

Web of Faith

Web of Faith offers a somewhat more casual approach to a great many more issues (149 if I counted correctly). This is essentially a printed version of the answers Frs. Brighenti and Trigilio have given on their EWTN television program of the same name. As a result, the questions are more briefly and more conversationally treated, and they are not necessarily devoted to hot-button issues. The point is to answer a large number of the normal questions Catholics have about their own faith, and of course there are two complementary voices participating in each answer. And they are fine voices. Both men have been priests for over thirty years, and both have extensive teaching and pastoral experience.

The book is divided into four main sections: Doctrine, Liturgy, Morality, and Prayer. In each section, a variety of types of questions are answered. So, for example, under “Doctrine”, we learn about the difference between crucifixes and crosses, the nature of original sin, the Trinity, Purgatory, the Immaculate Conception, the difference between Catholics and Protestants, and “death and suffering”. There is quite a range here, and though contemporary disputes figure in the decisions of what to include, controversy is neither the sole criterion nor an essential criterion for each choice.

Similarly, under Liturgy, we find everything from holy water to celibacy, from fasting to cremation, from annulments to wearing a veil at Mass. The section on Morality covers a wide variety of topics also, from grace to gluttony, from financially supporting the Church to praying in a state of mortal sin. And under Prayer, we jump into such topics as the purpose of litanies, the Presence of God, the Hail Mary, Eucharistic adoration and who goes to Heaven.

The point is that this is a book which defends and advances the faith primarily by explaining it, under its many aspects and implementations, to sincere Catholics who are seeking to more fully live this faith.

I can easily recommend both books for understanding Catholicism more fully, for explaining it better to others, and for defending it more successfully against misunderstanding or even overt hostility. The wisdom of God is often foolishness to men, but we need not contribute to that problem by our own failure to understand what we believe, and why.

Fr. Carter Griffin, Cross-Examined: Catholic Responses to the World’s Questions . Emmaus Road Publishing: 2021. 165pp. Paper $15.95; eBook $15.95.

Fr. Ken Brighenti & Fr. John Trigilio, Web of Faith: A Curious Catholic’s Answers to Theological Questions . EWTN Publishing (Sophia Institute Press): 2021. 368pp. Paper $19.95; eBook $9.99

Jeffrey Mirus holds a Ph.D. in intellectual history from Princeton University. A co-founder of Christendom College, he also pioneered Catholic Internet services. He is the founder of Trinity Communications and CatholicCulture.org. See full bio.

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Seven Catholic Theologians Every Protestant Should Read

E arly-twentieth-century Catholic theology was dominated by the “modernist” school, marked by higher criticism, questioning of the Church, and assimilation with modern culture. Several popes fought this trend by silencing and deposing theologians. In 1962, Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council, bringing about significant change.

This list provides a good starting point for thoughtful Protestant Christians looking to understand post-Vatican II theology. It introduces some of the most important Catholic theologians and trends in recent history. 

Karl Rahner (1904 – 84)

Karl Rahner, a German Jesuit priest and theologian, influenced Vatican II and post-conciliar theology significantly. He sought to craft a faithfully Catholic theology that mediated between traditionalism and modernism. Rahner believed that twentieth-century theologians had undermined God’s transcendence. Thus, building on Kant, Joseph Maréchal, and Heidegger, he crafted a “transcendental” method to balance God’s transcendence and immanence. 

Rahner’s articles and essays were published in the 21-volume, 8,000-page Theological Investigations . The Investigations is quite expensive and a difficult read, even for seasoned theologians. Thus, most Protestant readers would do well to start with Foundations of the Christian Faith , an eminently accessible one-volume systematic theology written toward the end of Rahner’s career. 

Hans Urs von Balthasar (1905 – 1988)

Hans Urs von Balthasar, a Swiss priest and theologian, was an influential member of the nouvelle théologie (“new theology”) movement that arose during the twentieth century, mostly among German and French theologians. Nouvelle théologie theologians wanted Catholic theology to return to its original purity of thought and expression. Thus, they advocated for ressourcement , a “return to the sources,” of the Christian faith, namely Scripture and the writings of the Church Fathers. Balthasar sought to cultivate a faithfully Catholic model of the continuity of being between God and humanity, doing so in conversation with the writings of Swiss theologian Karl Barth. He is known in hermeneutics for his advocacy of the four senses of Scripture.

Balthasar’s The Glory of the Lord conceives of theology as the dramatic display of divine beauty, as a form of discourse that is attentive and receptive to God’s radiating glory. In The Word Made Flesh , Balthasar argues that the Church’s experience mirrors the divine-human union of Jesus Christ. In Theo-Drama , he seeks to restore theology’s dramatic dimension, portraying, for example, Christology in light of the Son’s mission rather than in philosophical categories of nature, being, and essence. A helpful introduction to Balthasar’s thought is Matthew Levering’s The Achievement of Hans Urs von Balthasar . 

Henri de Lubac (1896 – 1991)

Henri de Lubac was a French Jesuit priest, cardinal, and theologian. His theological views continue to resonate among Catholics and have found a warm reception among many evangelicals. Perhaps his most significant theological contribution is his work on nature and grace, employing, as he did, a strategy of ressourcement in order to argue that nature is both made for grace and fulfilled by grace. For de Lubac, nature is itself a gracious gift, one that reorders and redirects itself (on this, de Lubac’s view is similar to that of Reformed theologian Herman Bavinck). 

De Lubac argued that the Church had unfortunately allowed its understanding of the corpus mysticum to migrate from the Sacrament to the Church, setting the stage for the corpus mysticum to migrate again, this time from the Church to the nation-state. De Lubac’s Corpus Mysticum examines medieval eucharistic theology and argues against scholastic trends in more recent Catholic theology. In Surnaturel , he strengthens his earlier case against scholasticism. In Medieval Exegesis , de Lubac defends the allegorical biblical interpretation of patristic theologians. Perhaps the best concise treatment of de Lubac’s accomplishments is Balthasar’s The Theology of Henri de Lubac . 

David Tracy (1939 – )

David Tracy is an American priest and one of the most creative and sophisticated theologians of the late twentieth century. His writings focus on theological method, integrating modern theology, philosophy, and literary criticism into a complex synthesis. Tracy’s work has been attacked on many fronts: for parading his learning too ostentatiously; for appropriating the thoughts of nearly every contemporary thinker, even when those thinkers’ contributions contradict one another; for producing prose that consists of an almost incontinent welter of names and ambiguities; and for a high-mandarin intellectual style that elevates the anecdotal enthymeme—that is, a syllogism in which one premise, often the major premise, has been suppressed—to the level of his own literary genre.

First time-readers of Tracy should start with his first major treatise, Blessed Rage for Order . An exercise in fundamental theology, it argues that Christian theology must be faithful both to God and to contemporary thought. If the reader has not been beaten to his knees by Blessed Rage , he might wish to tackle The Analogical Imagination , in which Tracy argues that theology must be public and interact with three distinct audiences: the academy, the Church, and society as a whole. Finally, the reader might be interested in Plurality and Ambiguity , which explores postmodernity from a questionably Christian perspective and serves as one of the greatest triumphs of the twentieth century’s Linguistic Obfuscation Department. 

George Weigel (1951 – )

George Weigel is widely considered the most influential contemporary Catholic layperson. He is best known for his two-volume biography of Pope John Paul II, his writings on the ethics of warfare, and his analyses of the Vatican and of Catholicism worldwide, as well as his warnings about progressive ideologies that threaten to subvert Catholic teaching.

First-time readers would do well to start with Witness to Hope , Weigel’s first biography of John Paul II. Readers interested in his public theology should read The Cube and the Cathedral (an evaluation of European and American politics in light of Christianity’s shrinking influence) or The Fragility of Order (Weigel’s reflections on current socio-political issues). 

Matthew Levering (1971 – )

Matthew Levering is arguably North America’s finest Catholic systematic theologian. In addition to co-editing Nova et Vetera and the International Journal of Systematic Theology , Levering is the author or editor of over forty books. He has published significant volumes on Augustine and Aquinas, and is currently completing a nine-volume dogmatics, the first several volumes of which have already been published. First-time readers of Levering may wish to begin with Participatory Biblical Exegesis (an introduction to theological hermeneutics) or Engaging the Doctrine of Creation (a volume of his projected nine-volume dogmatics that shows his exegetical and theological method in action).  

Scott Hahn (1957 – )

Having converted from Presbyterianism, Scott Hahn is arguably North America’s finest Catholic biblical theologian. According to Rome Sweet Home , Hahn swam the Tiber after coming to grips with the Bible’s pervasive teaching on covenant. For Hahn, the new covenant established by Christ includes the installation of a worldwide family constituted by the Roman Catholic Church. In his view, Christ is the head of this new family while the pope functions as his “prime minister.” First-time readers of Hahn may wish to start with The Father Who Keeps His Promises (an accessible biblical theology of covenant) or Hope to Die (a reflection on death and resurrection). Readers interested in his exegesis may wish to read Romans (a scholarly commentary).

Bruce Riley Ashford is a fellow in public theology at the Kirby Laing Institute for Christian Ethics and author, most recently, of  The Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach .

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Articles by Bruce Riley Ashford

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A List of Important Sermons and Articles That Are Worth Reading

More by justin.

A few days ago I was thinking back to a few classic sermons and essays that have made a significant impact on my own thinking and ministry. They are the sorts of pieces that can get lost in the shuffle in the midst of book recommendations, classic and contemporary. For example, a few that came to mind were:

• Thomas Chalmers, “ The Expulsive Power of a New Affection “
• Jonathan Edwards, “ The Excellency of Christ “
• B.B. Warfield, “ The Religious Life of Theological Students “
• B.B. Warfield, “ The Emotional Life of Our Lord “

So I thought it might be helpful to ask some pastors and theologians what they would recommend as sermons or essays that have had a special impact on them, or that they would seriously urge students and pastors to consider reading.

I’m thankful for all of the responses. I’ve tried to add as many links as possible to free versions online:

Bryan Chapell

• J.I. Packer, “ What Did the Cross Achieve? The Logic of Penal Substitution “
• Francis Schaeffer, “ A Day of Sober Rejoicing “

Graham Cole

• “ The Martyrdom of Polycarp “
• Adolphe Monod, Adolphe Monod’s Farewell to His Friends and to His Church
• B. B. Warfield, “ Imitating the Incarnation “
• Jonathan Edwards, “ A Farewell Sermon “

Dever also mentioned three books:

• Richard Sibbes, The Bruised Reed
• John Bunyan, The Pilgrim’s Progress
• Charles Bridges, The Christian Ministry

Kevin DeYoung

• John Piper, “ Boasting Only in the Cross ” (Passion OneDay 2000 sermon)
• C.S. Lewis, Introduction to Athanasius’ On the Incarnation
• J.I. Packer, Introductory Essay to John Owen’s The Death of Death in the Death of Christ
• Jonathan Edwards, “ Heaven, a World of Love “
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “What Is Preaching?” (included in Knowing the Times )
• J. Gresham Machen, “ What Is Christianity? ” (in Selected Shorter Writings )
• J. Gresham Machen, “ History and Faith ” (in Selected Shorter Writings )
• J. Gresham Machen, “What Is the Gospel?” (in Selected Shorter Writings )

Stephen J. Nichols

• J. Gresham Machen, “ The Good Fight of Faith “
• Jonathan Edwards, “ The Most High, A Prayer-Hearing God “
• John Chrysostom, “ Homily 21, On Ephesians 6:1-4 “

Ray Ortlund

• Francis A. Schaeffer, “ The Lord’s Work in the Lord’s Way “
• C. S. Lewis, “ Three Kinds of Men “
• Martin Luther, Letter to Jerome Weller , in Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel , edited by T. G. Tappert, pages 84-87.
• Jonathan Edwards, on spiritual pride , in “ Thoughts on the Revival ,” in Works , I:398-403.
• C.S. Lewis, “ The Weight of Glory ” (first sermon in the book by that title)
• Jonathan Edwards, “ A Divine and Supernatural Light Immediately Imparted to the Soul “
• Martin Luther, “ Justification by Faith ” (Luke 16:1-9) in The Protestant Pulpit , ed. by Andrew Blackwood
• Charles Spurgeon, “ The Minister’s Fainting Fits “
• Charles Spurgeon, “ The Blind Eye and the Deaf Ear “
• Geerhardus Vos, “ The Scriptural Doctrine of the Love of God “

David Powlison

• B. B. Warfield, “ Imitating the Incarnation “  (“The last page and a half offers the most riveting description of the goal of Christian living that I’ve ever read.”)

Fred Sanders

• Henry Scougal, The Life of God in the Soul of Man
• Athanasius, “ Letter to Marcellinus on the Reading of the Psalms “
• Lancelot Andrewes, Private Devotions

R.C. Sproul

• Jonathan Edwards, “ A Divine and Supernatural Light “
• This section of Luther’s last sermon at Eisleben

Carl R. Trueman

• R. V. G. Tasker, “ The Biblical Doctrine of the Wrath of God “
• Martin Luther, “ Two Kinds of Righteousness “
• George Orwell, “ Politics and the English Language ” [the most brilliant statement (and example) of clear prose—something which pastors and theologians need to grasp.]
• R.C. Sproul, Lecture on “The Locus of Astonishment” (A brief summary is available here . For a similar talk, listen to “ When Towers Fall .”)

Donald Whitney

• Charles Spurgeon, “ The Minister’s Fainting Fits ,” from Lectures to My Students .
• Charles Spurgeon, Sermon on “ The Eternal Name ,” from Ps. 72:17, no. 27 (New Park Street Pulpit), May 27, 1855 PM
• Charles Spurgeon, Sermon on “ Baptismal Regeneration “
• D. Martyn Lloyd-Jones, “‘ But God’: The Christian Message ” (Ephesians 2:4)

Justin Taylor is executive vice president for book publishing and publisher for books at Crossway. He blogs at Between Two Worlds and Evangelical History . You can follow him on Twitter .

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Ignatius of Loyola: a saint for difficult times

By Jessica Pipes

National Catholic Register, Jul 31, 2024 / 04:00 am

When Ignatius of Loyola found himself bedridden with a shattered leg, all of his big dreams and plans were history. Arrogant, stubborn, and hot-tempered, Ignatius was a soldier to his core, and he excelled on the battlefield.

Until now, his life as a soldier of Spain had stretched before him: simple, straightforward, and glorious. But this time, a flying cannonball had torn one of his legs to shreds. His glorious military career was over. Ignatius was at a dead end.

This was only the first of many dead ends, but they were ultimately part and parcel of the making of the saint. Sometimes it’s all too easy to imagine that the saints’ paths to holiness were uncomplicated, that whatever they may have suffered from sickness or the temptations of Satan, they at least knew clearly what God’s will was for them. But for nearly 20 years after his conversion, Ignatius had very little idea what he was doing. He dealt with failure, disappointment, sickness, and severe spiritual darkness. His journey gives us a battle plan for navigating our own dead ends.

A sudden end can be a new beginning.

Many know the basic story of Ignatius’ famous sickbed conversion: Bored and restless, he asked for novels of romance and chivalry, but he was given the “Lives of Christ and the Saints.” That soldierly fervor that had previously fed on knights errant and battles glorious found new energy in the selfless zeal of the saints. Ignatius unconditionally offered his life to Christ. What had initially seemed like the end of all his dreams suddenly became the door to a totally new life.

Inspired by the fervor of the saints, Ignatius immediately began an intense regimen of prayer, sacrifice, and poverty. But his prayer was plagued by scruples and depression. Ignatius was so tormented that he was tempted to take his life, according to New Advent/Catholic Encyclopedia.

Although overwhelmed by this darkness, Ignatius clung to the knowledge that any tendency to anxiety and despair was not from God. No doubt the knowledge offered little comfort at first, but Ignatius was slowly granted relief. By perseverance in prayer and total trust in the loving goodness of God, he had walked through what must have been the darkest nights of his life and come out the other end.

Great holiness is forged in daily sacrifice.

Ignatius never lost his love for prayer and sacrifice, and the insights he gained in contemplation became his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” The Jesuit order began as a group of university friends whom he gathered together to pray these “spiritual exercises.”

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Through prayer, sacrifice, and patient suffering, Ignatius had formed his own soul in virtue, and through his spiritual insights, he was able to lead many of the brightest young minds in Europe to a life dedicated to the Church.

Our talents are gifts from God.

From the beginning, Ignatius had longed to be a missionary. He was a natural leader and a soldier, with all the dynamism, conviction, courage, and stamina necessary for the difficult missionary life. He dreamed of converting the Turks in the Holy Land. But this plan failed when he was denied entry to Jerusalem by the Franciscans charged with watching over the Christians there, according to Warren Carroll’s “The Cleaving of Christendom.”

Disappointed, Ignatius went back to Spain to preach and teach in his native land, but he was arrested by the Inquisition, who feared that an uneducated teacher might inadvertently spread heresy.

Yet his missionary fire was not quenched. And the Church desperately needed missionaries — just not in the way that Ignatius had imagined. Europe was reeling in the chaos of the Protestant Reformation. The people needed clear teaching and ardent examples of holiness to bring them back to the Church.

Ignatius had no education. He was hardly the man to found an order of teachers, and he certainly had no grand dreams of confronting the problems of Christendom. But he saw at least that if he was to be an effective missionary in the current culture, he must be well educated, and he certainly had the zeal and stubbornness necessary to take on the daunting task. So for the next 11 years, he went to school, beginning in grammar school with schoolboys and proceeding to the study of philosophy and theology in Spain and France’s best universities.

It was during his years in university that the “Society of Jesus” was formed. These men were attracted to Ignatius’ zeal and holiness, and they came to him for advice and encouragement. He gathered them together, and soon a brotherhood was born. The friends were ordained priests and offered themselves in humble service to the pope.

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The Jesuits were sent on missions to teach and preach throughout Europe and in the new missionary lands in the Far East. Ignatius, however, was left alone in Rome to manage the business of the order. But he had always possessed a talent for leadership, and he instructed, encouraged, and organized from afar.

Within a few years, the Jesuits were in demand everywhere. Ignatius had wanted to be a missionary in foreign lands, but he allowed the Lord to lead him back to his native Spain, to the arduous task of education, and to ultimately use his talents of conviction and charisma to become one of the leaders of the Catholic Reformation in Europe.

A patron saint for difficult times

St. Ignatius is a great patron for people facing difficult times. Whether making hard choices, recovering from unexpected events, going through physical sickness or spiritual darkness, Ignatius of Loyola faced similar situations.

During the period of his life when he should have been settling into a steady career, earning money and honor, and preparing for comfortable retirement, Ignatius was reassessing his entire worldview. Not only did he do an about-face when he converted from soldier of Spain to soldier of Christ, but he then confronted many tribulations of sickness, persecution, doubt, and failure. Ignatius gave his life totally to Christ, but this did not mean his vocation was clear.

In the end, it was through prayer, sacrifice, and study that Ignatius became the saintly founder of the Jesuit order. Without any expectation of greatness, Ignatius dedicated himself to doing for the Lord what he did best. He formed his own soul in virtue, and with his inborn passion and flair for leadership, he began gathering and leading his friends in the same life of holiness. Almost by accident (and yet of course, by no accident at all), the group found themselves with a mission to serve the Church at a time when the Church desperately needed them.

Little did Ignatius know on that long-ago day when his leg was shot out from beneath him that, in the same year, the Church’s four-year attempt to reconcile with Martin Luther had come to a climax. Unable to persuade Luther to recant his heresy, the Church formally excommunicated him. The spiritual battle for Europe had begun.

At this moment in history, God needed a missionary and reformer with the courage, zeal, and practical experience to confront the confusion and chaos of Europe and to bring the faith into newly discovered lands. He chose Ignatius of Loyola.

This article was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA's sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

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13 Top Catholic Publishers Accepting Submissions

By Hiten Vyas

Are you looking for a list of Catholic publishers accepting submissions?

Below, we’ve featured 13 Catholic book publishers that are currently accepting manuscripts.

1. Our Sunday Visitor

Our Sunday Visitor is a non-profit Catholic publisher based in Huntington, Indiana. Founded in 1912 by Father John Noll, OSV was originally established as a weekly newspaper, but they have since expanded their publishing scope to include periodicals, pamphlets, educational materials, and books. They currently publish an average of 30 to 40 trade books each year. Some of their bestselling titles include Created for Love: Reflections for the Catholic Bride-to-Be, Unworried: A Life Without Anxiety, Encountering Mother Teresa, and Made for Mission: Renewing Your Parish Culture.

OSV is currently open for submissions, and their areas of interest include spiritual growth, family and marriage, faith and culture, biographies, evangelization and apologetics, worship, and prayer. If you have a manuscript or book idea you think OSV might be interested in, you can visit their Submittable page to review their guidelines and submit your work. Should you have any additional questions, you can get in touch with OSV through their online contact form .

2. Ignatius Press

Named after Saint Ignatius Loyola, Ignatius Press is a Catholic publishing house that was founded by Father Joseph Fessio in 1978. In 1979, they published their first book—a translation of Louis Bouyer’s Woman in the Church. Their catalog has expanded considerably since then, having published a wide selection of books across a range topics, including apologetics, history, philosophy, spiritual growth, biographies and memoirs, general theology, current issues, science and faith, and more. They also occasionally publish fiction and books for children. Their most recent titles include Western Culture: Today and Tomorrow, The Irony of Modern Catholic History, and The Power of Truth, among others.

Ignatius Press is currently accepting submissions. Please note that they are not interested in poetry, prayer books, dissertations, or small pamphlets. If you are interested in submitting your work, you can check out their submission guidelines here . For any additional questions or concerns, you can reach Ignatius Press here .

3. Emmaus Road Publishing

Emmaus Road Publishing is an Ohio-based publisher that specializes in creating Catholic resources for both clergy and laypeople. They have been producing Catholic content for almost 20 years, and their books span various subjects, such as marriage, family life, apologetics, theology, spirituality, religious education, and more. Emmaus Road also publishes books for children and teens. Their bestselling books include The Creed: Professing the Faith Through the Ages, Courageous Women: A Study on the Heroines of Biblical History, and These Beautiful Bones: An Everyday Theology of the Body.

Emmaus Road is currently accepting submissions via email . Submissions must include three sample chapters, a synopsis, information on the target audience, and a brief author biography. They are not interested in poetry, memoirs, fiction, biographies, or short booklets. For more information, you can take a look at their submission guidelines here . If you have any other questions, you can send them an email .

4. Sophia Institute Press

Based in New Hampshire, Sophia Institute Press is a non-profit organization that publishes books that nurtures the moral, spiritual, and cultural lives of their readers. One of their main goals is to spread the Gospel of Christ in accordance with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. The press was founded in 1983, and they have since published more than 200 titles. They mainly publish non-fiction books on spirituality, philosophy, and theology. Their bestsellers list includes titles like Cooking with the Saints, The Missionary of Wall Street, The Priests We Need to Save the Church, and How Catholic Art Saved the Faith, among others.

Sophia Institute Press is currently open for submissions, and you can learn more by checking out the submission guidelines on their website. Once you are ready to submit, you can do so via email . For general inquiries, you can contact them here .

5. Loyola Press

Loyola Press is a Chicago-based publisher specializing in books and other multimedia products that inspire people of all ages to lead purposeful lives. They were founded in 1912 as Loyola University Press but became a separate entity in 1940, and they changed their name to Loyola Press in 1995. The press primarily publishes school books, particularly in the areas of faith formation and language arts, but they also publish adult non-fiction. Topics include history, spirituality, inspiration, devotionals, memoirs, family, prayer, grief, and more.

Loyola Press welcomes submissions. The books they are interested in can be classified under two categories: books that help people experience God in their lives and books that explain the richness of Catholic faith. You can learn more about the kind of work they are looking for by reading their submission guidelines . For general inquiries, you can get in touch with them here .

6. Paraclete Press

Based in Massachusetts, Paraclete Press is the publishing house of the Community of Jesus. While they do publish a wide range of Catholic books, their catalog represents a complete expression of Christian faith and practice—be it Catholic, Orthodox, Protestant, or Evangelical. In addition to non-fiction books, daily devotionals, and prayer books, Paraclete Press also publishes poetry, fiction, and children’s books. Their latest releases include Victorious by Stan Guthrie, Art and Theology in Ecumenical Perspective by Timothy Verdon, Drawing God by Karen Kiefer, and Saints at Heart by Bert Ghezzi.

Paraclete Press is currently open for submissions. To get a better idea of the kind of books they are looking for at the moment, check out their submission guidelines . If you have any other questions, you can reach Paraclete Press via email .

7. Pauline Books and Media

Pauline Books and Media is one of the most trusted Catholic publishers in the United States. They are the publishing apostolate of the Daughters of Saint Paul, and they specialize in Catholic books for both children and adults. The areas they publish in include spirituality, prayer, faith formation, family life, children’s fiction, and teaching resources. They do not publish poetry, fiction for adults, or memoirs.

If you would like to submit a proposal to Pauline Books and Media, you can get started by checking out their submission guidelines here . If you need more information or have any general inquiries, you can contact the Daughters of Saint Paul via email .

8. Ave Maria Press

Ave Maria Press is a Catholic publishing company based in Notre Dame, Indiana. The press was established in 1865 when Father Edward Sorin launched the Ave Maria magazine with the goal of honoring Mary through exceptional American Catholic writing. The magazine ceased publication in 1970, but the press continued to produce books and pamphlets. Since then, they have published the works of important Catholic authors, including Thomas Green, Lisa Hendey, Joseph Champlin, Tom Corcoran, Michael White, Mother Teresa, Edward Hays, and Robert Wicks, among others.

Ave Maria currently welcomes submissions in the form of book proposals. For more information on what to include in your proposal, you can take a look at their submission guidelines here . Please note that they do not accept unsolicited submissions in the following areas: children’s books, fiction, and personal accounts of conversion. You can get in touch with Ave Maria Press via email should you have any additional questions.

9. Paulist Press

Based in New Jersey, Paulist Press is one of North America’s leading Catholic publishers and a major component of the work of the Paulist Fathers, a society of missionary priests established in 1858. Father Isaac Hecker, founder of the Paulist Fathers, started the press as a way to make American Catholicism more accessible to laypeople. Since then, Paulist Press has carried on Father Hecker’s vision, publishing books on faith, personal growth, worship, philosophy, theology, spirituality, social issues, pastoral ministry, and more.

Paulist Press accepts book proposals in the following categories: academic books, children’s books, popular books, and professional books. Each category has a different set of guidelines, so make sure you check them out here . For general inquiries, you can contact Paulist Press via email .

10. Liguori Publications

Liguori Publications is a non-profit Catholic publisher based in Missouri. Founded in 1911, they first started out as a magazine for and by the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer. The Liguorian Magazine remains their most popular publication, but they also publish books, pamphlets, and parish materials. Their mainly produce educational and inspirational books on prayer, faith formation, the sacraments, personal growth, family life, and spirituality. They do not publish poetry, fiction, autobiographies, private revelations, or works that are not founded in Roman Catholic belief.

If you have a manuscript that is in line with Liguori Publications’ vision, you can submit a proposal according to the guidelines stated here . Should you have any other questions, you can contact them here .

11. Liturgical Press

Liturgical Press is a Catholic publisher operated by St. John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota. Founded in 1926, the press is one of the leading liturgical publishers in the United States. They mainly publish books on parish life, academic resources, monastic traditions, spirituality, prayer, and Christian living. Some of the award-winning titles on their list include Sauntering Through Scripture, God’s Good Earth, Illuminating Justice, Spirituality: An Art of Living, and A Pope Francis Lexicon, among others.

Liturgical Press is currently open for submissions. If you are interested in submitting, you can follow the steps listed here . Should you have any additional questions, feel free to get in touch with Liturgical Press here .

12. Rafka Press

Founded in 2006, Rafka Press is a Catholic publisher located in Phoenix, Arizona. They specialize in spiritual readings, children’s fiction, marriage, and family life. They are very selective about the books they publish, and they only publish books that truly faithful to the teachings of the Catholic Church. Some of their most popular titles include Open Letters to Catholic Graduates, Well Adjusted: Raising Children from Hearth to Heaven, and The Glorious Mysteries of the Holy Rosary.

Rafka Press only accepts submissions from Catholic authors. At the moment, they are most interested in children’s fiction that ends with a strong moral conclusion. To learn more about what they are currently looking for, you can check out their submission guidelines . You can also contact them through the inquiry form on their website.

13. Orbis Books

Based in New York, Orbis Books has been at the forefront of religious publishing since 1970. They are the publishing arm of the Mary Knoll Fathers and Brothers, producing a wide range of books on Catholic life, theology, spirituality, prayer, and current affairs. Some of their most recent titles are Abuse and Cover Up: Refounding the Catholic Church in Trauma, An Ecological Theory of Liberation, Catholicity and Emerging Personhood, and Marked for Life: A Prison Chaplain’s Story.

If you would like to submit your work for Orbis Books’ consideration, you can do so via email or post. For information on what to include in your proposal, make sure you check out their submission guidelines here . You may also reach them through the contact form on their website.

Do you know of any other Catholic publishers accepting submissions? Please tell us about them in the comments box below!

Hiten Vyas is the Founder and Managing Editor of Writing Tips Oasis .

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112 Catholicism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

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Catholicism Essay Topic Ideas & Examples: Exploring the Richness of the Faith

Catholicism is one of the oldest and most influential branches of Christianity, boasting a rich history, deep theological traditions, and a vast array of practices and beliefs. When tasked with writing an essay on Catholicism, it can be overwhelming to choose a topic that truly captures the essence of this faith.

To help you in your quest for an engaging and thought-provoking essay, we have compiled a list of 112 Catholicism essay topics and examples. Whether you are interested in exploring the historical development of Catholicism, its impact on art and culture, or its contemporary relevance, this list will provide you with a wide range of ideas to spark your imagination.

Historical Development of Catholicism:

• The origins of Catholicism: tracing its roots to the early Christian community.
• The role of St. Peter in the establishment of the Catholic Church.
• The schism between the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church.
• The Crusades: exploring the motivations and impact on Catholicism.
• The Protestant Reformation: its effect on Catholicism and the Counter-Reformation.
• The role of the papacy throughout history.
• The Council of Trent: its significance in shaping Catholic doctrine.
• The Inquisition: examining its purpose, methods, and consequences.
• The role of Catholic missionaries in the colonization of the Americas.

Catholic Theology: 10. The nature of God in Catholicism: exploring the Trinity. 11. The significance of the Eucharist in Catholic theology. 12. Mary, the Mother of Jesus: her role and veneration in Catholicism. 13. The sacraments in Catholicism: their meaning and importance. 14. The concept of sin and forgiveness in Catholic theology. 15. The role of prayer and devotions in Catholic spirituality. 16. The Catholic understanding of salvation and the afterlife. 17. The relationship between faith and reason in Catholic thought. 18. The role of the Magisterium in interpreting Catholic doctrine. 19. Catholic social teaching: principles and their application in society.

Catholic Art and Culture: 20. The influence of Catholicism on Renaissance art. 21. The use of religious symbolism in Catholic art. 22. The architecture of Catholic churches: from Gothic cathedrals to modern designs. 23. The portrayal of saints in Catholic art and iconography. 24. Catholic music: exploring Gregorian chant and sacred hymns. 25. The significance of religious processions and pilgrimages in Catholic culture. 26. Catholic feast days and their celebrations around the world. 27. Catholic literature: examining the works of Catholic writers throughout history. 28. The impact of Catholicism on film and popular culture. 29. The role of Catholic education and schools in shaping cultural values.

Contemporary Issues in Catholicism: 30. The role of women in the Catholic Church. 31. Catholicism and social justice: addressing poverty and inequality. 32. The Catholic Church's stance on homosexuality and LGBTQ+ rights. 33. The challenges of modernizing Catholic practices in a changing world. 34. The role of Catholics in promoting environmental stewardship. 35. Interfaith dialogue: Catholicism in a multi-religious society. 36. The impact of scandals and controversies on the Catholic Church. 37. The role of Catholic media and communication in the digital age. 38. The Catholic Church's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. 39. Catholicism and politics: examining the influence of the Church on public policy.

Examples of Famous Catholics: 40. St. Augustine of Hippo: his life, writings, and contributions to Catholic theology. 41. St. Thomas Aquinas: his philosophical and theological works. 42. St. Teresa of Calcutta (Mother Teresa): her life and humanitarian work. 43. Pope Francis: his papacy and reformist agenda. 44. St. John Paul II: his impact on the Catholic Church and global politics. 45. Flannery O'Connor: exploring the Catholic themes in her literature. 46. Dorothy Day: her advocacy for social justice and founding of the Catholic Worker Movement. 47. St. Ignatius of Loyola: the founding of the Jesuit order and his spiritual exercises. 48. Thomas Merton: his writings on contemplation and spirituality. 49. St. Therese of Lisieux: her "Little Way" and spirituality of everyday life.

These 112 Catholicism essay topics and examples are just a starting point for your exploration of this vast and complex faith. Whether you choose a historical, theological, cultural, or contemporary perspective, remember to approach your essay with an open mind and a willingness to delve into the depths of Catholicism's beliefs, practices, and impact on the world. Happy writing!

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The Catholic Modernist Crisis in a Nutshell

by Elizabeth Huddleston July 23, 2024

J osephine Hope-Scott Ward (1864–1932) wrote at the crossroads of the implementation of Catholic Emancipation in England—particularly the Universities Tests Acts of 1871—and the Catholic Modernist Crisis (1893–1914). The author of ten novels, a novella, and numerous articles and personal writings, Josephine Ward’s body of work provides a unique look into how the modernist controversy was experienced by English Catholics in the first decade of the twentieth century.

Josephine Ward was the niece of the Duke of Norfolk, which demonstrates her ties to Recusant England. She was also the daughter of the Tractarian and Oxford convert, James Robert Hope-Scott (1812–1872). In 1887, Josephine married Wilfrid Ward (1856–1916), who was the son of the notable Oxford convert, William George Ward (1812–1882). Formed by the English Catholic intelligentsia, Josephine and Wilfrid would become two of the most influential Catholic voices in England at the time of the modernist controversy. Though nearly all of Josephine’s writings have fallen out of print and all but disappeared from the historical record, her voice is essential for an understanding of the social and religious implications of the modernist crisis in England in particular, but also in the greater Anglophone sphere. This is particularly true of her novel, Out of Due Time .

The Modernist Crisis in a Nutshell

The Roman Catholic Modernist Controversy is typically dated from Leo XIII’s promulgation of Providentissimus Deus (On the Study of Holy Scripture) in 1893 to the death of Pope Pius X and/or the beginning of the First World War, both of which occurred in 1914. [1] The modernist controversy hit its peak in 1907 with the publication of Lamentabili Sane (the Syllabus Condemning the Errors of the Modernists) and the subsequent release of Pascendi Dominici Gregis (On the Doctrines of the Modernists) on 8 September 1907.

While the modernist crisis cannot be considered a unified movement—such as the Oxford Movement, for example—there is a set of questions that defines the crisis and frames the subsequent Catholic theology.

Neo-Scholasticism

In 1879, Pope Leo XIII introduced neo-Scholasticism as a solution for the political crises of the nineteenth century. Those accused of modernism would unite in their conviction that the overly-intellectualist propositionalism was inadequate to the theological needs of the time, most prevalently here being the “Victorian Crisis of Belief,” which saw the rise of science as a direct challenge to faith in God. Richard Helmstadter describes this Victorian Crisis as,

An intellectual and emotional upheaval, stemming from challenges to the historicity of the Bible, discoveries in geology and biology, and concerns about morality, or rather the lack of it, in nature. Science and religion, more precisely science and theology, were deemed to be “in conflict,” the battle lines clearly drawn. [2]

“Now our science tells our faith that she is shameful,” writes William James, “and our Hopes that they are dupes; our Reverence for truth leads to conclusions that make all reverence falsehood.” [3] The pathos of this era is epitomized in Matthew Arnold’s “ Dover Beach ”:

The Sea of Faith  Was once, too, at the full, and round earth’s shore Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled. But now I only hear Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar, Retreating, to the breath Of the night-wind, down the vast edges drear And naked shingles of the world.

For those reeling from this Victorian Crisis, the idea of religious truth treated thematically in an intellectualist manner and mediated propositionally was becoming less and less plausible.

The introduction of a developmental or evolutionary paradigm in the nineteenth century replaced the eighteenth-century emphasis on the classification of facts. Taxonomies in the nineteenth century were run through time. This rise in historical consciousness effected the interplay between theology and science. For example, Geologist Charles Lyell argues that the age of the earth challenges the way Genesis was typically read at the time. Similarly, the findings of Darwin in 1859 posed challenges to both teleology and the reading of Genesis 1–3. Social Darwinism was also introduced alongside the seemingly random nature of natural selection.

Theologically, what is true in science seems to be at odds with what is true of divine revelation. In other words, the very idea of the nature of divine revelation itself was at stake.

In keeping with the idea of the rise of running everything through time, there arose a concern for the historical mediation of truth (divine revelation). Questions stirred, such as: do propositions develop? Is there a stability behind propositions?

Ancient Near Eastern Studies became popular, and archaeological digs of ancient Mesopotamia became popular. The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Enuma Elish were discovered in 1849 by archaeologist Austen Henry Layard, for example.

We see the rise of critical texts of scripture and the beginnings of the historical critical method. Scripture scholars began asking questions as to whether scripture could be historicized and studied in terms of its sources as we might study any other book, and if so, can it still be considered scripture? After the rise of historical criticism, questions remained as to whether figural readings of scripture are still valid. Bremond poses questions about whether we need to abolish Christmas, for example.

Discussions about the Church’s history are equally neuralgic for Catholics. How do we understand the nature of doctrinal development?

Again, as was the case for the rise of the scientific method, the rise of historical consciousness in the nineteenth century called into question the very idea of the nature of divine revelation in the early twentieth century.

The Mystical Element

The questions introduced with the scientific and historical methods led to questions about what William James ambiguously deemed “religious experience” in 1902. This is the idea that if there is religious truth (i.e. divine revelation), then it must be human subjects located in historical contexts who believe in it.

We see an engagement with modern post-Kantian philosophy after the turn to the subject. Maurice Blondel (1861–1949) and Lucien Laberthonnière (1860–1932) engage the idea that if there is truth, it is subjects who know it, but how do they do that? Does the way that subjects know divine truth make it possible for us to know God? What is the role of the subconscious? Can psychology reductively explain religious experience or even shed light on it?

If the understanding of divine revelation is destroyed, one of the first and most common moves is to make it into a symbol that is part (typically the best part) of a larger vision of “religion” through world history. We see this in Alfred Loisy (1856–1940), for example. In order to avoid the mistake of making religion into simply an overly symbolic thing we study, authors began to reach back into the pre-Reformation and early modern tradition of the Church to find more adequate categories for talking about how people have experienced or known God in ways that are not primarily intellectual.

This emphasis on the mystical leaves one with the question of how to avoid subjectivism. Pascendi , for example, poses the question: “Is there a God outside myself into whose hands I must one day fall?”

Most importantly for the “modernists,” the question was how can divine revelation be understood within the paradigm of immanent transcendence?

William L. Portier describes the modernist crisis as ripping “through Catholic intellectual life like a tragic storm.” Continuing, Portier writes,

But its havoc cut to a level deeper than the merely intellectual. Pascendi forced people to take sides. Agonized personal decisions put colleagues at odds and set friend against friend. Censured priest questioned fellow clergy or pious laymen who escaped censure. Subsequent historical and autobiographical writing apportioned the inevitable praise and blame. [4]

The Modernist Controversy has often been studied through the lens of its key figures—Tyrrell, Loisy, Hébert, Houtin, Sabatier, von Hügel, Bremond, to name a few—and their anti-modernist counterparts—Garrigou-Lagrange, Merry del Val, Pius X, etc. What can be lost in only viewing the crisis solely through the extremities and the particularities of those condemned is a sense of how the crisis spilled into the lives of others not at the epicenter. Josephine and her husband, Wilfrid, were conversant with tenants of both modernism and anti-modernism. Of course they did not want to be censored or condemned for their writings, but they also felt that the Church was lacking in her relationship with the modern world. Their writings, both personal and published, reflect the tumult felt within the Catholic landscape described here. While it is important to study the central figures and tenants of movements and crises, it is also important to take a step back and try to view the ripple effects of the crisis to the wider Church. Josephine Ward helps us to gain a better understanding of these currents.

Josephine Ward, Modernism, and Anti-modernism

In her biography of her parents, Maisie Ward writes that her mother disliked the culture surrounding modernism, particularly its “criticism and irreverence that were constantly breaking out in conversation.” [5] She notes that her mother saw the modernists as “a mutual admiration society living in a very small room,” and that “she [Josephine] wanted to throw open a few windows and let some air in to relieve the stuffy atmosphere.” [6] Maisie’s insight into her mother’s opinion of the modernist culture is interesting because the idea of a stuffy intellectualism is typically reserved for the anti-modernists in our contemporary historiography. [7] In her review of Maude Petre’s Modernism , Josephine writes,

“There are many dusty corners in every old building,” said a wit of the day, “but it is not necessary to wave your duster out of the window as a flag of revolt.” “Modernism was a spirit, a tone, a temper of mind,” was said to me recently by a non-Catholic thinker. That spirit, tone, and temper had become unmistakably mutinous. This latest review of the movement clearly provides that the rioters were threatening the most treasured truths, and the Encyclical Pascendi was the riot act that was read to the mutineers. [8]

Josephine and her husband were caught between the Scylla and Charybdis of the prevailing propositionalist neo-Scholastic orthodoxy and the scientifically minded, but often irreverent, modernism. This catch-22 in which the Wards found themselves is described beautifully throughout Josephine’s novel, Out of Due Time .

Out of Due Time

“The expression of a conviction reached through an experience intimate and personal,” one reviewer described the somewhat autobiographical novel as “the defense of the Church against the accusation that she is intolerant of intellectual freedom and progress, that she silences the thinker and persecutes the reformer.” [9] Out of Due Time is the story of Elizabeth Fairfax, called “Lisa,” a young Englishwoman who becomes acquainted with the Count Paul D’Etranges and his sister Marcelle, and George Sutcliffe.

Paul D’Estranges represents the more radical wing of the modernists. Paul publishes an article entitled, “The Old Catholicism and the New,” which was based on a lecture he gave at a scientific congress, “but divested of the prudent reservation that clothed his speech.” [10] This article treated existing theology “with sheer contempt,” and ignored “the value of authority even as a breakwater, as a witness to the older and deeper truths, a witness to the principle of stability.” [11] For Paul, “The Catholicism of the future was to be formed, not by the interaction of the old truths and new, but simply by the personal opinions of Paul and his friends, of those who professed, indeed, to be Catholics, but whose views were almost exclusively determined and fashioned by the peculiar tendencies of the present age.” [12] Paul would eventually be condemned for not retracting the paper, with his sister following him into obscurity.

Sutcliffe, described as “a Catholic . . . indeed in the true English style,” is the voice of moderation in this narrative. [13] For Sutcliffe, “the Church cannot triumph unless it assimilates modern science, and keeps its hold on the people. It must be scientific and democratic.” [14] The protagonist and narrator, Lisa, was initially betrothed to Paul, though in the end she ended up marrying George because she could not give up her faith. In the end, moderation won the day.

It is important to note that this novel was published prior to the Syllabus of Errors and Pascendi . Ward’s Out of Due Time captures the human element of the controversy. It was not simply intellectual argumentation that ceased with the ending of a meeting; people’s lives were at stake. To be condemned a “Modernist” was to be rejected from the life of the Church. To many, it was experienced as a sort of death. What this novel demonstrates through these characters is that many of those condemned as Modernists, such as Paul D’Estranges, were not seeking a life outside of the faith. These were deeply faithful people who were attempting to bring sense into a Church that was seemingly dying under the weight of the prevailing neo-Scholasticism of the day.

The influence of Josephine Ward is described nicely in the Catholic World ’s 1906 review of Out of Due Time . It reads:

By her former work, One Poor Scruple , Mrs. Wilfrid Ward secured for herself a high place among living novelists. The wide success and high appreciation that it won proved that a religious novel, extolling Catholic ideals, when written with ability, truthfulness, and a knowledge of life, could command the favorable attention of non-Catholics, and might be a very efficient exposition and winning defense of Catholic truth, securing attention in quarters, closed, and guarded by the twin sentinels of prejudice and contemptuous indifference, against any literature making a formal plea for Catholicism. [15]

Studying the literary output of Catholic authors’ writing about Catholic themes during the Modernist Crisis can be quite enlightening. On the one hand it demonstrates, at least to some extent, how Josephine (or any author doing a similar task) understood and critiqued various aspects of the crisis. On the other hand, it also demonstrates how the crisis was being translated and disseminated to those potentially unaware of it. For example, the readers of the novel Out of Due Time encounter many of the tensions felt in the actual crisis, even though they may not know the drama playing out in real life. This is one way in which the Modernist Crisis becomes a crisis of the whole Church, and not just a quibble between a few eccentric academics and Vatican officials of the early twentieth century.

In recent years there has been an increase in scholarship devoted to reintroducing important Catholic women’s voices back into the historical and literary records. I was delighted to see Word on Fire’s recent edited volume, Women of the Catholic Imagination: Twelve Inspired Novelists You Should Know , and the Catholic Women Writers series from the Catholic University of America Press is publishing excellent selections.

[1] Much of this summary is derived from lecture notes provided by William Portier in his doctoral seminar on the modernist crisis taught at the University of Dayton.

[2] Richard Helmstadter, in “ The Victorian Crisis of Faith .”

[3] William James, “Clifford’s ‘Lectures and Essays,’” Collected Essays and Review (London: Russell and Russell, 1920), 140.

[4] William L. Portier, Divided Friends: Portraits of the Roman Catholic Modernist Crisis in the United States (Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2013), 4–5.

[5] Maisie Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition , vol. II: Insurrection versus Resurrection (New York: Sheed & Ward, 1937), 190–91.

[6] Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition , v. 2, 190–91.

[7] See Peter Erb, “Some Aspects of Modern British Catholic Literature: Apologetic in the Novels of Josephine Ward,” British Catholic History 24, no. 3 (May 1999): 364–83.

[8] Ward, The Wilfrid Wards and the Transition , v. 2, 558.

[9] New York Times Book Review (26 May 1906).

[10] James J. Fox, “Mrs. Wilfrid Ward’s New Novel,” Catholic World: A Monthly Eclectic Magazine of General Literature 83 (1906): 386.

[11] Ward, Out of Due Time (London, Longmans, Green, and Co., 1906), 188.

[12] Fox, “Mrs. Wilfrid Ward’s New Novel,” 386; see Ward, Out of Due Time , 188.

[13] Ward, Out of Due Time , 43.

[14] Ward, Out of Due Time , 40.

[15] Fox, “Mrs. Wilfrid Ward’s New Novel,” 382.

Featured Image: Francesco de Fredericis, Photo of Piux X, 1903; Source: Wikimedia Commons, PD-Old-100. 

Elizabeth Huddleston

Elizabeth Huddleston is Head of Research and Publications at the National Institute for Newman Studies and is a Teaching Fellow in the Department of Catholic Studies at Duquesne University.

Read more by Elizabeth Huddleston

The Gift of Modernity

March 20, 2018 | Cyril O'Regan

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The ancient origins of Catholic anti-Semitism—and what we owe our Jewish siblings today

The protests over the war in Gaza that roiled many college campuses in the United States this past May and June raised once again the ancient specter of anti-Semitism. This year’s version of the prejudice arose from Israel’s vigorous response to Hamas’s attack on Oct. 7, 2023, which slaughtered 1,200 Israelis and took 251 hostages. Jewish fears of such prejudice are understandable, given their long history of suffering from violent anti-Semitism. But peaceful and clearly articulated campus protests against Israeli military actions are, of course, legitimate, to be expected and even welcomed.

Christian protesters, however, may not be fully aware of the bloody history of anti-Semitism that was fueled in part by Christian anti-Judaism going back to the origins of Christianity. And the Catholic protesters among them may not be aware that their church invites them in these opening years of the third millennium to a new and positive relationship with their Jewish neighbors.

Already in the b eginning

How did anti-Judaism arise among Christians? To a large extent, the answer lies in the period when the New Testament was written down—the latter part of the first century. It is often forgotten that it took 20 years after Jesus’ death circa 30 C.E. for the first Christian writings to appear—St. Paul’s First Letter to the Thessalonians in 50 C.E. Nearly all of the other books of the New Testament were composed in the form we now have in the half century that followed.

During those five “writing decades,” leaders of the Jesus movement had to explain to themselves and their fellow Jews why mainstream Judaism was not accepting Jesus as messiah and was opposing Christian outreach to Jews. In those five decades, conflict between Christians and the Jewish synagogue greatly intensified, and writers sometimes adopted the rough and tumble language of the prophets as they fulminated against opponents and presumed their ill will. Inevitably, Christian gospels and letters often reflect disappointment and frustration over their dashed hopes for Jewish acceptance.

For example, the Gospels nearly always portray the Jewish religious guides of that time, the Pharisees, as hypocritical foes of Jesus; and the Gospel of John’s use of the term “the Jews” suggests that all Jews, not just some leaders, rejected Jesus and arranged for his death. The first-century conflict was to a large extent an intra-Jewish conflict, for Jesus, his family and his earliest followers were Jews, deeply disappointed that their co-religionists did not accept what they themselves so ardently embraced.

Conflict was inevitable, for Jesus’ followers from the start gave divine honor to Jesus and interpreted the Scriptures (especially the Psalms, Isaiah and Deuteronomy) in a more urgent and immediate way than did mainstream Judaism. By the end of the first century, the die had been cast, and many Christian writings defined their movement by its differences from Judaism. Christian attitudes were woven into the already existing Greco-Roman criticism of Judaism for its distance from civic religious ceremonies.

Adversus Judaeos

It is not surprising that the Latin phrase Adversus Judaeos , “against (or ‘distinct from’) the Jews,” has come to characterize a whole body of Christian literature that responded to real or imagined Jewish accusations against Christ, Christians or Christianity. The Adversus Judaeos literature argued for Jesus’ messiahship, God’s rejection of the Jews as God’s chosen people and the rejection of Jewish law measured against a supposed new and spiritual revelation. As the scholar Andrew S. Jacobs has written in The Encyclopedia of Ancient History , “The fierce rhetoric of Adversus Judaeos was highly effective…. By the Middle Ages, the Christian image of the Jew—intransigent, murderous, misanthropic, diabolical, and deicidal—had hardened into the chilling stereotype that would eventually feed into the racialized anti-Semitism of the modern era.”

In assessing patristic authors, one must be nuanced, however. The authors regarded the Old Testament as inspired. Origen, for example, devoted enormous labor to establishing a critical Greek text, and John Chrysostom wrote commentaries on Genesis, Psalms and Isaiah as well as commentaries on New Testament books.

Unfortunately, what had been for the most part conventional Christian anti-Judaism during the first millennium changed in the second millennium into something far worse. Around the time of the First Crusade in the 11th century, Jews began to suffer violent attacks, often influenced by Christian preachers; in some places entire communities of Jews were massacred. In 1215, the Fourth Lateran Council forced Jews to wear distinctive clothing. Once isolated, Jews were easily demonized, subject to false accusations such as desecrating the host, murdering children or poisoning the water supply. In 1556 in Rome, Pope Paul IV forced Jews into the ghetto (the Venetian dialect word for “island”).

Jews did not fare much better under the Protestant reformers. Failing to gain widespread Jewish conversions, Luther urged Protestant princes to expel them or impose restrictions. The 18th-century Enlightenment brought some toleration, but many Christian leaders, including popes, remained reactionary and aggressively promoted conversion to Christianity. In the 19th century, anti-Judaism took on its modern racist cast. Racist anti-Semitism got fully under way in Europe, coming to an unspeakable climax in the 1930s and 1940s with the Holocaust, a carefully planned genocide of six million Jews, almost two-thirds of the Jewish population in Europe.

In the post-World War II mid-20th century, the shock of the Holocaust spurred many Christian leaders to re-examine the Christian anti-Judaism that fueled anti-Semitism and to make amends. One example of the change in Catholic attitudes was the 1965 “Declaration on the Relationship of the Church to Non-Christian Religions” (“Nostra Aetate”) of the Second Vatican Council (1962-65). This declaration was the first conciliar document that expressed genuine appreciation for non-Christian religions—Hinduism, Buddhism, Islam and especially Judaism, to which it devotes the most space. It declares: “Since Christians and Jews have such a common spiritual heritage, this sacred Council wishes to encourage mutual understanding and appreciation. This can be obtained, especially, by way of biblical and theological enquiry and through friendly discussions.”

“Nostra Aetate” marked a turning point in Roman Catholic attitudes toward Jews. A fresh start in Christian–Jewish relations in the third millennium seemed possible.

A 21st-century response

Roman Catholic responses to pastoral issues often include appeals to official documents from the Vatican or other church bodies. Non-Catholics can be puzzled by such habitual attention to documents, but for a church that respects tradition as much as the Catholic Church does, such attention is a time-honored way of moving forward.

Three official documents are necessary for understanding contemporary Christian relationships to Jews. One has already been mentioned, “Nostra Aetate.” The other two are concerned with how Christians should read the Scriptures they share with Jews—the Old Testament or Hebrew Scriptures. The first document, “The Word of God” (“ Dei Verbum ”), is a dogmatic constitution issued by Vatican II. Its fourth chapter evaluates the Old Testament from an exclusively Christian perspective, emphasizing its predictive function with regard to the New Testament and focusing on messianic passages. It restates the scholarly consensus of the mid-20th century without breaking new ground. Chapter Four honors and appreciates the Old Testament as the word of God, but it does so largely on the basis of its foreshadowing of the New Testament.

The third document is more promising. “ The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible ” was published in 2002 by the Pontifical Biblical Commission, a Vatican group made up of internationally recognized Catholic biblical scholars. A striking paragraph compares Christian and Jewish reading and makes an extraordinarily important point:

Christians can and ought to admit that the Jewish reading of the Bible is a possible one, in continuity with the Jewish Sacred Scriptures from the Second Temple period, a reading analogous to the Christian reading which developed in parallel fashion. Each of these two readings is part of the vision of each respective faith of which it is a product and an expression. Consequently, they cannot be reduced one into the other [emended last sentence of the faulty Vatican translation].

The document notes the continuities in Jewish and Christian readings of the Hebrew Scriptures, but it does not disguise the ruptures of the Christian reading. The document also lists significant ruptures in the course of Jewish interpretation: the Levitical priesthood of the Jerusalem Temple; animal sacrifice; dietary and purity rules; and the practice of the ban on annihilation of enemies in war. Such Jewish reinterpretation over the centuries, notes the Pontifical Biblical Commission’s document, “makes clear that the shift of emphases accomplished in the New Testament was already begun in the Old Testament and constitutes a legitimate potential reading of it.” The document explains the word “potential” by a metaphor from developing photographs. “Like a ‘developer’ [the chemical solution] during the process of photographic development, the person of Jesus and the events concerning him have caused to appear in the Scriptures a fullness of meaning that could not be hitherto perceived.”

Major differences in Jewish and Christian readings remain, however. The most obvious is the New Testament’s reinterpretation of traditional monotheism by incorporating into it the divine status of Jesus, the view that human beings are created in the image of God defined by Christ (Col 1:15), and the recognition that God’s people, already in possession of an irrevocable covenant, are offered a “new covenant” (Jer 31:31) established through the blood of Jesus.

One of the virtues of “The Jewish People and Their Sacred Scriptures in the Christian Bible” is that it takes seriously early Christian interpretation within the first-century Judaism of the Sadducees, Pharisees and groups like Jesus’ earliest followers. It recognizes that Jesus and his disciples embraced the Scriptures as their own Jewish heritage and read the Scriptures using exegetical practices of their culture. Last but not least, the document acknowledges that Jesus and his followers were “siblings” of other minority groups within first-century Judaism.

Two common views that need revision today

The current view that Christianity is the offspring of Judaism–that is, the child of its parent Judaism–needs to be revised. The first reason for revising is historical. Modern Judaism took its rise from rabbinic Judaism of the second century C.E., whereas Christianity arose earlier, in the first century C.E. The rabbi-founders were Jewish sages who flourished in Palestine after the destruction of the Second Temple in 70 C.E. and became responsible for editing and interpreting the Scriptures.

Judaism is thus not the parent of nascent Christianity, but its sibling. Christianity should no longer be regarded as a child struggling to differentiate itself from Judaism, its parent, but as a sibling in a friendly and respectful relationship.

A good example of a sibling and respectful relationship is presented in a book co-authored by two professors at Harvard Divinity School, Kevin J. Madigan, a Catholic, and Jon D. Levenson, a Jew, The Power of God for Christians and Jews :

Rabbinic Judaism and Christianity are not parent and child but siblings, sister religions whose parent was Second Temple Judaism and whose more distant ancestors were still earlier phases of the religion of Israel…. Whereas Christians have traditionally affirmed a theology in which their religion replaced Judaism, this was never the case historically. Judaism continued to live, to develop, and to spread long after Christianity appeared; and it survives, often flourishing, to this day. Moreover, Christianity can acquire an accurate view of the way their religion originated in Judaism only if they familiarize themselves with the rich Jewish literature of the late Second Temple and early rabbinic periods of Jewish history.

The second view that needs to be revised is the common description of Judaism and Christianity as two covenants and the argument about whether one supersedes or replaces the other. Rather, we ought to follow “Nostra Aetate” and join with both the prophets of the Old Testament and the apostle Paul of the New Testament in “awaiting the day, known to God alone, when all people will call on God with one voice and serve him ‘shoulder to shoulder’ (Zeph 3:9).” Focusing on the hope shared by both Jews and Christians for God’s consummation of history lifts all eyes toward God and God’s work of bringing history to its appointed goal, moving the discussion away from superiority of covenants to a commonly shared hope.

The start of the third millennium provides just such an opportunity for Catholics to appreciate their Jewish neighbors.

Richard J. Clifford, S.J., is professor emeritus of Old Testament at Boston College. Formerly general editor of The Catholic Biblical Quarterly and founding dean of the Boston College School of Theology and Ministry, he was an editor of The Paulist Biblical Commentary. Four paragraphs in this article on the history of Christian anti-Semitism have been adapted from Clifford, “Changing Christian Interpretations of the Old Testament,” Theological Studies 82.3 (2021) 509-530.

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Ignatius of Loyola: a saint for difficult times

July 31, 2024 Catholic News Agency News Briefs 0 Print

National Catholic Register, Jul 31, 2024 / 04:00 am (CNA).

When Ignatius of Loyola found himself bedridden with a shattered leg, all of his big dreams and plans were history. Arrogant, stubborn, and hot-tempered, Ignatius was a soldier to his core, and he excelled on the battlefield.

Until now, his life as a soldier of Spain had stretched before him: simple, straightforward, and glorious. But this time, a flying cannonball had torn one of his legs to shreds. His glorious military career was over. Ignatius was at a dead end.

This was only the first of many dead ends, but they were ultimately part and parcel of the making of the saint. Sometimes it’s all too easy to imagine that the saints’ paths to holiness were uncomplicated, that whatever they may have suffered from sickness or the temptations of Satan, they at least knew clearly what God’s will was for them. But for nearly 20 years after his conversion, Ignatius had very little idea what he was doing. He dealt with failure, disappointment, sickness, and severe spiritual darkness. His journey gives us a battle plan for navigating our own dead ends.

A sudden end can be a new beginning.

Many know the basic story of Ignatius’ famous sickbed conversion: Bored and restless, he asked for novels of romance and chivalry, but he was given the “Lives of Christ and the Saints.” That soldierly fervor that had previously fed on knights errant and battles glorious found new energy in the selfless zeal of the saints. Ignatius unconditionally offered his life to Christ. What had initially seemed like the end of all his dreams suddenly became the door to a totally new life.

Inspired by the fervor of the saints, Ignatius immediately began an intense regimen of prayer, sacrifice, and poverty. But his prayer was plagued by scruples and depression. Ignatius was so tormented that he was tempted to take his life, according to New Advent/Catholic Encyclopedia.

Although overwhelmed by this darkness, Ignatius clung to the knowledge that any tendency to anxiety and despair was not from God. No doubt the knowledge offered little comfort at first, but Ignatius was slowly granted relief. By perseverance in prayer and total trust in the loving goodness of God, he had walked through what must have been the darkest nights of his life and come out the other end.

Great holiness is forged in daily sacrifice.

Ignatius never lost his love for prayer and sacrifice, and the insights he gained in contemplation became his famous “Spiritual Exercises.” The Jesuit order began as a group of university friends whom he gathered together to pray these “spiritual exercises.”

Through prayer, sacrifice, and patient suffering, Ignatius had formed his own soul in virtue, and through his spiritual insights, he was able to lead many of the brightest young minds in Europe to a life dedicated to the Church.

Our talents are gifts from God.

From the beginning, Ignatius had longed to be a missionary. He was a natural leader and a soldier, with all the dynamism, conviction, courage, and stamina necessary for the difficult missionary life. He dreamed of converting the Turks in the Holy Land. But this plan failed when he was denied entry to Jerusalem by the Franciscans charged with watching over the Christians there, according to Warren Carroll’s “The Cleaving of Christendom.”

Disappointed, Ignatius went back to Spain to preach and teach in his native land, but he was arrested by the Inquisition, who feared that an uneducated teacher might inadvertently spread heresy.

Yet his missionary fire was not quenched. And the Church desperately needed missionaries — just not in the way that Ignatius had imagined. Europe was reeling in the chaos of the Protestant Reformation. The people needed clear teaching and ardent examples of holiness to bring them back to the Church.

Ignatius had no education. He was hardly the man to found an order of teachers, and he certainly had no grand dreams of confronting the problems of Christendom. But he saw at least that if he was to be an effective missionary in the current culture, he must be well educated, and he certainly had the zeal and stubbornness necessary to take on the daunting task. So for the next 11 years, he went to school, beginning in grammar school with schoolboys and proceeding to the study of philosophy and theology in Spain and France’s best universities.

It was during his years in university that the “Society of Jesus” was formed. These men were attracted to Ignatius’ zeal and holiness, and they came to him for advice and encouragement. He gathered them together, and soon a brotherhood was born. The friends were ordained priests and offered themselves in humble service to the pope.

The Jesuits were sent on missions to teach and preach throughout Europe and in the new missionary lands in the Far East. Ignatius, however, was left alone in Rome to manage the business of the order. But he had always possessed a talent for leadership, and he instructed, encouraged, and organized from afar.

Within a few years, the Jesuits were in demand everywhere. Ignatius had wanted to be a missionary in foreign lands, but he allowed the Lord to lead him back to his native Spain, to the arduous task of education, and to ultimately use his talents of conviction and charisma to become one of the leaders of the Catholic Reformation in Europe.

A patron saint for difficult times

St. Ignatius is a great patron for people facing difficult times. Whether making hard choices, recovering from unexpected events, going through physical sickness or spiritual darkness, Ignatius of Loyola faced similar situations.

During the period of his life when he should have been settling into a steady career, earning money and honor, and preparing for comfortable retirement, Ignatius was reassessing his entire worldview. Not only did he do an about-face when he converted from soldier of Spain to soldier of Christ, but he then confronted many tribulations of sickness, persecution, doubt, and failure. Ignatius gave his life totally to Christ, but this did not mean his vocation was clear.

In the end, it was through prayer, sacrifice, and study that Ignatius became the saintly founder of the Jesuit order. Without any expectation of greatness, Ignatius dedicated himself to doing for the Lord what he did best. He formed his own soul in virtue, and with his inborn passion and flair for leadership, he began gathering and leading his friends in the same life of holiness. Almost by accident (and yet of course, by no accident at all), the group found themselves with a mission to serve the Church at a time when the Church desperately needed them.

Little did Ignatius know on that long-ago day when his leg was shot out from beneath him that, in the same year, the Church’s four-year attempt to reconcile with Martin Luther had come to a climax. Unable to persuade Luther to recant his heresy, the Church formally excommunicated him. The spiritual battle for Europe had begun.

At this moment in history, God needed a missionary and reformer with the courage, zeal, and practical experience to confront the confusion and chaos of Europe and to bring the faith into newly discovered lands. He chose Ignatius of Loyola.

This article was first published by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.

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Where the Middle Ages Begin

St. Basil’s Cathedral: Medieval Russia’s Iconic Building

By Alice Isabella Sullivan

Situated in the heart of Moscow’s historic Red Square, St. Basil’s Cathedral is perhaps one of the most iconic buildings in Russia. The structure exhibits an unprecedented architectural complexity and a decorative scheme drawn from various artistic traditions. Moreover, it was designed to serve as the main backdrop for the events that celebrated the expansion of the Muscovite state under Ivan IV “the Terrible”.

Built first as a church (Trinity Church) and then elevated to the status of a cathedral a few decades later, St. Basil’s was a commemorative monument to the victories of Ivan IV (r. grand prince of Moscow 1533-1547; tsar of all Rus’ 1547-1584) in the Russo-Kazan Wars of 1552. These events significantly expanded the borders of Ivan IV’s domain, helping transform the Russian State into an empire with far-reaching control. The territorial and economic growth under Ivan IV also enabled the Russian tsar to turn his attention toward building projects, like the impressive new structure of St. Basil’s Cathedral.

The new cathedral was built using mainly red brick on a foundation of white stone. The complex consists of nine main chapels or “tower-churches” organized in a symmetrical pattern and offering a staggered ascending impression from the exterior. Onion domes, a hallmark of Russian architecture, cap the tops of these tall chapels. With no parallel in Byzantine or Slavic religious building, St. Basil’s Cathedral is intriguing from an architectural standpoint and in terms of its dazzling design and colorful decorative features.

Metropolitan Macarius (Ivan IV’s spiritual advisor) had laid down the original design for the building, which centered on eight chapels. In efforts to render the complex more harmonious and rational, the architect(s), likely inspired by Italianate models, proposed a nine-chapel scheme. The distinctive and symmetrical layout of St. Basil’s consists thus of nine chapels arranged in a rectilinear pattern. Eight of these mini-churches—dedicated to The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem (W); St. George the Illuminator of Armenia (NW); Saint Martyrs Cyprian and Justinia (N); The Three Patriarchs of Alexandria (NE); The Holy Trinity (E); St. Alexander Svirsky (SE); St. Nicholas Velikoretsky (S); St. Barlaam Khutyn (SW)—surround the larger and central one dedicated to the Intercession or the protection of the Virgin Mary to comprise the total structure. In 1588, a tenth chapel was added to the complex in the NE annex and dedicated to St. Basil the Blessed, a wonderworker of Moscow (1468-1557), after whom the cathedral is known today. In 1672, the SE annex received another chapel for the Virgin’s veil, later rededicated to the Nativity of the Theotokos.

A 156-foot high central nave and a massive multifaceted central tower on the exterior define the core of the church. From the exterior, thus, the cathedral offers the impression of an ascending, layered, and “flame-like” structure focused on the central massive tower. Originally, the cathedral’s appearance was mainly white with golden cupolas crowning each of the towers. After the 1583 fire that greatly damaged the building, the golden domes of the tower cupolas were replaced with the onion domes. These now-famous domes received their multi-colored appearance in 1670. The rich and vibrant colors for which the building is celebrated today also date to these seventeenth-century restoration projects.

One of the most distinctive exterior features of St. Basil’s Cathedral is its architectonic ornamental forms drawn from Italianate, Gothic, and local traditions. Unlike earlier Russian churches that regularly displayed figural motifs in paintings or relief sculptures on their exterior walls, St. Basil’s decorations center on vegetal, geometric, and abstract forms. In this building, the brickwork is employed for both structural aspects and decorative effects. Rounded arches, engaged columns, cornices, and various kinds of pilasters derived from Classical and Italianate forms articulate the facade of the building. Of a Muscovite origin are the semicircular motifs known as kokoshniki set in multiple rows in the upper portions of the towers, which became a popular feature of Russian architecture from the sixteenth century onward.

Although the mastermind behind the design of St. Basil’s Cathedral remains unknown, some scholars have proposed an architect of Italian origin. It is known that Italian architects worked on nearby buildings in the Kremlin beginning in the 1470s. The Russian chronicles also name two local architects, although they could be one and the same person: Barma and Postnik Yakovlev (Postnik could be a nickname for Barma). Nevertheless, the actual process through which the designer(s) arrived at the eclectic visual appearance of the cathedral with features and forms drawn from distinct building traditions remains elusive.

Legend also has it that supposedly Ivan IV blinded the cathedral’s architect(s) so that the designs of his new and impressive structure could not be replicated in any other subsequent building. Although such accounts cannot be verified, they do align with what is known of Ivan IV’s complex personality and aspects of his severe and capricious temperament. Sources note episodes of mental outbreaks, with one notable tragic instance, detailed in visual and textual sources, in which Ivan IV killed his own son during an argument. Other accounts speak of his harsh treatment of Russian nobility.

Situated outside the walls of the Kremlin – Moscow’s fortified and elite civic and religious epicenter – St. Basil’s Cathedral symbolized the tsar’s connection to the people. In the space of the marketplace, this connection was unmediated by the supreme power of the Kremlin and its aristocracy and clergy. As such, this building is a monument to the ideology of the Russian Tsardom and the Russian Orthodox Church.

Interestingly, a scale replica of St. Basil’s Cathedral was built in Jalainur, China (about 3200 miles west of Moscow and about 700 miles north of Beijing). This building was not designed nor ever served as a church. Instead, beyond the replica façade of Moscow’s St. Basil’s Cathedral, this place is a science museum with copies of fossils and other ancient artifacts. Also, there is the hotel and tourist attraction known as Asteria Kremlin Palace in the Kundu district of Antalya, Turkey, that contains a replica of St. Basil’s with a swimming pool nearby, alongside other buildings that emulate famous Russian monuments.

Until the completion of the renovations on Ivan the Great’s Bell Tower in the Kremlin in 1600, St. Basil’s Cathedral stood as the tallest building in Moscow. As a symbol of Moscow and one of the city’s most famous tourist attractions today, St. Basil’s Cathedral remains a prominent centerpiece of the Red Square. It is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage site, and today serves as a museum.

Alice Isabella Sullivan is an art historian specializing in the medieval history, art, and culture of Eastern Europe and the Byzantine-Slavic cultural spheres. She has authored  award-winning publications , is co-editor of  Byzantium in Eastern European Visual Culture in the Late Middle Ages , and co-founder of  North of Byzantium  and  Mapping Eastern Europe . Follow her on Twitter  @AliceISullivan

I. G. Gross, “Saint Basil’s Cathedral as a Symbol of the Otherness of Russia,” Comparative Literature Studies 28, no. 2 (1991): 178–188.

D. Hepburn, Saint Basil’s Cathedral: History and Architecture of Moscow’s Greatest Church (Hyperink, 2012).

M. Y. Lannie, and V. N. Soukchov, “Case Study: Acoustics of St. Basil’s Cathedral in Red Square, Moscow,” Building Acoustics 6, no. 2 (1999): 141–149.

Top Image: St. Basil’s at Night – photo by Rob Lee / Wikimedia Commons

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Did the Olympics mock the Last Supper? Explaining Dionysus and why Christians are angry

Was the opening ceremony performance a mockery of christianity, as some are suggesting or was it a homage to the greek god dionysus, as organizers proclaim.

Friday's wild opening ceremony for the Paris Olympics put the spotlight on influential French metal bands , famed athletes bearing their nations' flags and a triumphant return from Celine Dion herself .

The parade down the river Seine featured plenty of eye-catching moments that sparked online fervor – including one now particularly infamous scene that outraged many Christians who lambasted its resemblance to Leonardo Da Vinci's famed Last Supper painting.

In the tableau, a scantily-clad man painted in blue emerged at the center of a table to sing among dancing drag queens.

Conservative and Christian leaders were quick to condemn the scene as an offensive parody of imagery and symbolism at the center of their faith, despite the insistence of ceremony organizers that they took inspiration from an ancient pagan festival.

So, was the brief scene a mockery of Christianity, as some are suggesting? Or was it a homage to the Greek god Dionysus, as organizers proclaim?

Here's what to know about the controversial moment, and why some are questioning the performance's intent.

Paris Olympics: Top moments from opening ceremony

Drag queens dance around Dionysus in opening ceremony performance

The performance featuring Dionysus was one of many highlights of the opening ceremony to this year's summer Olympics taking place Friday on and along the Seine.

The tableau, which was broadcast during the ceremony, included a woman wearing a a silver, halo-like crown at the center of a long table flanked by drag queens. The scene is promptly disrupted when a nearly naked man painted blue emerges from a dinner plate surrounded by fruit.

As he begins singing, the drag queens break out into dance behind him.

Conservative, Christian leaders say performance mocked 'Last Supper'

It wasn't long until the scene prompted outcry from Christian and Conservative leaders in the United States who viewed its imagery as a mockery of "The Last Supper."

The famous mural by Renaissance artist Leonardo da Vinci depicts Jesus Christ surrounded by his 12 apostles on the eve of his crucifixion.

As described in the Gospel, Jesus shares bread and wine with his gathered disciples, which he instructs them to eat and drink as his body and blood. The New Testament moment is a cornerstone of the Christian worship, as it is the basis of the Eucharist.

Because the Olympic opening ceremony scene so closely resembled the revered painting, several Christian and Catholic organizations publicly denounced it.

The French Bishops’ Conference, which represents the country's Catholic bishops,  said in a statement  that the scene was a "mockery and derision of Christianity." Influential American Catholic, Bishop Robert Barron of Minnesota,  said in a video  that it constituted a “gross mockery" of "a very central moment in Christianity."

Conservative political leaders and businesses also criticized the piece.

In a post on X , formerly known as Twitter, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-La.) on Saturday said the performance "was shocking and insulting to Christian people around the world.” C Spire, a U.S. telecommunications provider, also said on X that it was pulling its advertising from the Summer Games as a result of the performance.

Who is Dionysus, reputed inspiration of ceremony feast scene?

But the opening ceremony’s artistic director, Thomas Jolly, has insisted that the scene is not a reference at all to the Last Supper.

Rather, the performance is a nod to a pagan celebration featuring Dionysus, the Greek god of fertility, wine and revelry.

Portrayed at the Olympics by French singer and actor Philippe Katerine, Dionysus – known to the Romans as Bacchus – has a close tie to France: In Greek mythology, he is the father of Sequana, the Goddess of the River Seine.

Even the official Olympics account on X said on Friday that the “interpretation of the Greek God Dionysus makes us aware of the absurdity of violence between human beings.” The post did not mention the Last Supper, while others commenting on the post described the performance as a depiction of a Dionysian feast.

Following the outcry, Jolly said at  the International Olympic Committee's daily briefing at the Olympic Games on Saturday that the moment was not meant to "be subversive or shock people or mock people." On Sunday, Jolly appeared on  French TV station BFMTV to further insist that "The Last Supper" was "not my inspiration" for the segment.

"The idea was to have a pagan celebration connected to the gods of Olympus. You will never find in me a desire to mock and denigrate anyone," he said. "The idea was to create a big pagan party in link with the God of Mount Olympus."

What is the Festival of Dionysus?

In 5th century Athens, the Festival of Dionysus came to be one of the pinnacle events of the year.

Every year around springtime, playwrights would compete to entertain the masses of Athenian citizenry, according to Brown University . The festivities also included a procession from outside the city limits in which the sacred statue of Dionysus was carried to a theater named for the god near the Acropolis.

While the Olympic ceremony performance could be said to depict one such celebration, some have even said the scene was reminiscent of not just Da Vinci's work, but other works as well.

Among them is “ The Feast of the Gods ," a 17th century painting from Dutch artist Jan van Bijlert depicting the Greek gods of Olympus crowded around a long table. At the center of the table is the sun god Apollo, recognizable by a halo of light around his head.

The painting is among the collection at the Musée Magnin in Dijon, France, which  posted  images of it Sunday on X.

“Does this painting remind you of something?” the museum asked with a wink.

Ce tableau vous rappelle quelque chose ? 😉 Et si vous veniez l’admirer au #MuséenationalMagnin à Dijon ? @jeuxolympiques @paris2024 @Thomajolly @DaphneBurki #Paris2024 #ceremoniedouverture #Jeuxolympiques pic.twitter.com/iUteobd2eb — Musée Magnin (@MagninMusee) July 28, 2024

Paris 2024 spokesperson issues apology

The explanations for the performance did not stop Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps from apologizing on Sunday to those offended by the scene.

"Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. On the contrary, I think (with) Thomas Jolly, we really did try to celebrate community tolerance," Descamps said. “Looking at the result of the polls that we shared, we believe that this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offense, we are, of course, really, really sorry.”

The IOC  said on social media  that it took note of the apology from Paris 2024.

Contributing: Jordan Mendoza , USA TODAY

Eric Lagatta covers breaking and trending news for USA TODAY. Reach him at [email protected]

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Herald of the change

GK Chesterton, the great English Catholic writer, was prolific and many-talented: He wrote “novels and short stories, poetry, art and literary criticism, philosophy,” and many other things, although he is best known for his novels, such as The Secret of Father Brown , and his works of Christian apologia. On Mind & Mythos, the psychologist Dan Ackerfeld hosts an essay club, and recently, he looked at Chesterton’s short essay A Defence of Heraldry . “Don’t let the length fool you,” warns Ackerfeld. “Chesterton manages to say quite a lot in so few words, and does so with his characteristic style and wit .”

In the essay, the traditionalist Chesterton laments that the great flattening of society, the move away from the idea that kings and lords were great and the rest of us common, came with an “appalling mistake… of decreasing the human magnificence of the past instead of increasing it.” Instead of saying to “the common citizen, ‘You are as good as the Duke of Norfolk, [they] used that meaner democratic formula, ‘The Duke of Norfolk is no better than you are.’” But that magnificence — the pomp and ceremony of the British royal family or ancient Rome — still has a lasting appeal.

The mind’s eye

When someone says “picture the scene,” do you assume it’s a figure of speech? The journalist Katie Herzog always did — during a conversation with family, she was startled to learn that other people literally visualized scenes in their heads — that they “could see actual pictures in their minds.” She is, she realized, an aphantasiac, someone with no visual imagination. “It was as though I’d just found out that my entire family could fly if they flapped their arms fast enough,” she writes on Blocked and Reported, “ while I was down here crawling .”

Investigating, she found it was a reasonably common experience, and online sources reassured her that it was not a disability. “The hell it’s not, I thought… I started thinking about all the hidden ways my inability to visualize may have affected my life.” She’s trying to remodel her house, and wondering about new shelving or bookcases: “Would that look good in my house? I had no idea. I quite literally could not picture it.”

State of control

The sociologist James Scott died recently. He was, writes the political scientist Ben Ansell on Political Calculus, “one of the two or three greatest minds in the social sciences of the past half century.” His vision was of “ states imposing order on people and people resisting that order ” — his most famous book Seeing like a State revealed Scott’s “deep distrust of the ambitions of central states, of technocrats, or market-makers.”

Human affairs are messy and ad hoc; cities and civilizations grow in tangled, unplanned ways. But states need visibility, so they try to impose order: New World cities and reformers of Old World ones “replaced curves with straight lines, alleys with boulevards, local knowledge and custom with the needs and desires of central government.” That local knowledge and custom, though, often served vital purposes — a fact also recognized by GK Chesterton, mentioned above — and too often, states’ central designers would “fall afoul of facts on the ground, or simply smash those facts into dust.”

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The History Hit Miscellany of Facts, Figures and Fascinating Finds

St Basil’s Cathedral

Moscow, Moscow, Russia

St Basil’s Cathedral is a magnificent 16th century ecclesiastical creation of Ivan the Terrible, built in celebration of a military victory.

Sarah Roller

24 nov 2020, @sarahroller8.

About St Basil’s Cathedral

St Basil’s Cathedral is a strikingly ornate red brick building bordering Moscow’s Red Square and crowned with several vividly coloured domes, which bear a striking resemblance in shape to flames licking at the sky.

History of St Basil’s Cathedral

St Basil’s Cathedral was originally constructed in 1555, under the orders of Tsar Ivan IV (also known as Ivan the Terrible). Ivan’s intention in building St Basil’s Cathedral was to celebrate his victory in the Russo-Kazan Wars, specifically the siege of Kazan and the cathedral’s name was derived from that of a Russian Orthodox saint called Vasily (Basil) the Blessed.

There has been much dispute over who actually designed St Basil’s Cathedral, but one particularly gruesome legend says that, after they did so, Ivan arranged for the architect’s eyes to be removed so that they could not create anything to rival its beauty. This is almost certainly untrue, given records show that they were employed 25 years later to add an extra chapel. In fact, St Basil’s Cathedral was quite an innovation in Russian architecture. Nothing like it had existed before.

The interior of St Basil’s Cathedral is arguably disappointing when compared with the building’s exterior. This is due in large part to the scale and design, which lacks a focal point. The chaos of the domes hides the fact that the interior is essentially comprised of 9 chapels. Look out for the chapel dedicated to St Vasily the Blessed, a holy fool who commanded the fear and respect of Tsar Ivan himself: the chapel was commissioned after his death.

The interior does contain some interesting medieval paintings – particularly those of icons – and today forms part of the State History Museum. Look out for the tomb of St Basil himself.

St Basil’s Cathedral today

St Basil’s remains an iconic building for a reason: its colourful riot of onion domes still excites even the most jaded traveller when they view it for the first time. The cathedral is open year round, although with seasonal hours, and the maze of chapels inside can be confusing, especially when it’s busy. Whilst the interior is interesting, it’s the exterior which is the most impressive aspect of the cathedral. It can be bitterly cold inside in the winter!

Getting to St Basil’s Cathedral

It’s pretty hard to miss St Basil’s: it remains the focal point of Moscow’s famous Red Square. It is most easily accessed via the trio of metro stations – Okhotnyy ryad (line 1), Teatralnaya (line 2), Ploschad’ Revolyutsii (line 3). All three are a five minute walk away from Red Square. Approach via the Marshal Zhukov monument for the most memorable impression. Multiple roads in the city lead here, and any and every taxi driver will know where you’re heading!

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Paris 2024 apologises over ‘Last Supper parody’ at Olympics opening ceremony

The controversial sketch angered the catholic church and many on social media, prompting the organisers to explain the logic behind the parody, article bookmarked.

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The Paris 2024 organisers have apologised to Catholics and other Christian groups after some people interpreted a sketch during the Olympics opening ceremony on Friday night as being a parody of Leonardo Da Vinci's famous The Last Supper painting.

A kitsch tableau is said by some to have parodied the iconic painting, recreating the biblical scene of Jesus Christ and his apostles sharing a last meal before crucifixion, although this was denied by the man behind the event.

The sketch featured drag queens, a transgender model, a naked singer made up as the Greek god of wine Dionysus, and a child.

FOLLOW LIVE: Tennis, swimming and athletics action across Team GB and 2024 Olympics

The scene drew dismay from the Catholic Church, with the organisers explaining that the decision was motivated by a desire to achieve “community tolerance”.

But Italy's deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini branded the scene insulting and “sleazy”, adding: "Opening the Olympics by insulting billions of Christians across the world was a really bad start.”

“We imagined a ceremony to show our values and our principles so we gave a very committed message,” Paris 2024 president Tony Estanguet said. “The idea was to really trigger a reflection. We wanted to have a message as strong as possible.

“Naturally, we had to take into account the international community. Having said that – it is a French ceremony for the French Games – so we trusted our artistic director. We have freedom of expression in France and we wanted to protect it.”

Paris 2024 spokesperson Anne Descamps told a press conference: “Clearly there was never an intention to show disrespect to any religious group. (The opening ceremony) tried to celebrate community tolerance.

“We believe this ambition was achieved. If people have taken any offence, we are really sorry.”

Paris 2024 artistic director Thomas Jolly was left baffled by the negative reactions to the show and said the scene had not been inspired by The Last Supper and depicted a pagan feast linked to the gods of Olympus in order to celebrate diversity and pay tribute to feasting and French gastronomy.

“Our idea was inclusion,” Mr Jolly said. “Naturally, when we want to include everyone and not exclude anyone questions are raised.

“Our subject was not to be subversive. We never wanted to be subversive.

“We wanted to talk about diversity. Diversity means being together. We wanted to include everybody.

“In France, we have artistic freedom. We are lucky in France to live in a free country.”

This article was amended on 29 July 2024 to include Mr Jolly’s denial that the scene had been based on The Last Supper, and to make it clear that this was some people’s interpretation of the tableau. The article had previously reported that it was a parody of the painting.

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