What Is It Like to Be Enchanted?
Mark Spencer
Nowadays more and more people, Christians and non-Christians alike, are pondering the themes of enchantment and disenchantment. (I haven’t read it yet, but this is the theme of Rod Dreher’s newly released book, Living with Wonder.) Many lament the loss of an enchanted world, the pre-modern world in which people experienced themselves to be caught up in a spiritual drama, a world where people perceived the presence of spiritual realities around them...

The Power of Images in an Iconoclast Culture...
R. Jared Staudt
“You were without hope in the world.” This is how Paul describes the Ephesian Christians before their conversion, stuck in the darkness of sin and paganism. Idols expressed their hope for material security, embodying their pleasure and pain, hopes and terrors in tangible forms that entangled their souls. Christ brought divine light into a dark world...

This Sunday, Jesus is revealing the end game of Christianity...
Tom Hoopes
There are 33 years in Jesus’ life and 33 weeks in Ordinary Time in the Church. Soon we will celebrate the Feast of Christ the King, and then the cycle starts over with Advent. But first comes the Thirty-Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, the dramatic end of the liturgical year. The Gospel for the day is dire, insisting that the end really is coming, and we should be ready for it. Here are takeaways from the readings from previous This Sunday columns.

Cardinal Becciu Pushes Back Against Vatican Media Editorial...
Edward Pentin
Cardinal Angelo Becciu, the Vatican cardinal who is appealing his embezzlement conviction last year, has pushed back against recent claims made by the Vatican’s chief editorial director, insisting, “If I had cheated the Pope, I certainly would not be here shouting my innocence to the world!” In a commentary published in L’Osservatore Romano and Vatican News Nov. 11, the former deputy Vatican secretary of state said an Oct. 30 editorial by Andrea Tornielli...

Synodality Requires Conversion of Heart More Than New Structures, US Bishops Say...
Jonathan Liedl
Promoting synodality in the United States depends more on a conversion of heart than on the creation of new structures, the U.S. bishops emphasized at their fall assembly in Baltimore.“It’s about cultural change, not necessarily structural change or not necessarily canonical changes, but first and foremost a change in how we can relate one to another and the Body of Christ,” said Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore at a Nov. 13 press conference at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) meeting.

How to Prepare Kids With Autism for First Confession...
Fr. Matthew Schneider
Back at the end of May this year, I interviewed Jeanne Lyons about the great things they were doing for autistic students at St. Peter Channel in Roswell, GA (north Atlanta suburb) for autstics. In June, I published an article about them running a sensory-friendly Mass for a decade. At the time, we talked a lot about how she catechizes autistic students...

Get ready for Thanksgiving in 2 weeks with the Theology of Home Thanksgiving Guide...

The Vatican’s China policy is a continuing scandal...
George Weigel
In the annals of historical boorishness, it would be hard to find something more egregious than the Holy See’s timing as it renewed its 2018 agreement with the People’s Republic of China, which allows the Chinese Communist Party a significant role in the appointment of Catholic bishops. That renewal took place on October 22: the liturgical memorial of Pope St. John Paul II...

Dismantling a Disorienting Catholic Quirk in ABC’s New Crime Show ‘High Potential’...

Education must be controlled by a child’s parents...

What Lay Professionals In Catholic Ministry Want Their Pastors to Know...

What happens to God if Marvel chooses to ‘repent’?

Baltimore, Dr. Barber, and ‘Character Is Conduct’...

Anglican Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby Resigns Over Handling of John Smyth Sex Abuse Scandal...

Pope’s Sunday Angelus: ‘Offer Tenderness and Steer Clear of Hypocrisy’...

Bells of Notre Dame Cathedral Ring for the First Time Since Devastating Fire 5 Years Ago...

St. Thérèse's Little Way was a quiet rejection of an insidious heresy...