The Catholic Thing

by John Grondelski.

Expect the word "reform" to be thrown around frequently during the current interregnum in the Church. Looking backwards, there will be debates about what reforms were expected of Pope Francis, what he delivered or failed to deliver, and whether those acts or omissions were, in fact, reforms. Looking forward, the argument will be over what "reforms" to expect from the next pope.

Part of the "reform" debate will center around the Second Vatican Council and its ongoing implementation. One thing is for certain: whoever the next pope is - unless he is an octogenarian - for him, Vatican II will be an event of history, not unlike Trent or even Nicaea. And even Francis, who no doubt remembered the Council, took no part in it.

Which makes the revisionist history arising around the Francis pontificate so false.

There's a tendency to call Francis a "reformer" for "restarting" the "reception" of the Council, implicitly after the 35-year delay caused by John Paul II and Benedict XVI. Think about that: Bergoglio, a nonparticipant in the Council, supposedly better understood it than one pope who was a Council Father and another who was a distinguished peritus.

We are at a watershed moment.

This conclave will, in some sense, define how we "understand" Vatican II. Will it be a Council that fits into the long ages of Church history? Or will it be some break with that history? Will the Council be read according to what the Council Fathers actually wrote (allowing that there is ambiguity in some of the passages)? Or will "a specter be haunting the conclave," the ghost of Vatican II, that somehow, like so many emanations of penumbrae, finds scant anchorage in the Council's actual words?

This split has been plaguing the Church since the Council. It found its best recent expression in Pope Benedict's contrast between the "hermeneutic of continuity" and the "hermeneutic of rupture" - two very different ways of understanding the Council. During Benedict's lifetime, the advocates of rupture were somewhat held in check. Since his death, they've been unleashed.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the former prefect of the Congregation (now Dicastery) for the Doctrine of the Faith and bête-noire of the Francis papacy, captured this dilemma in the title of his 2023 book, True and False Reform: What It Means to Be Catholic. The crisis facing the Church is not, says Müeller, a choice between two equally valid and morally indifferent paths by which to go forward. The crisis she faces is one of true or false reform.

The crisis is: where do we start? Do we insist, as the Church always has, on the centrality and truth of Jesus Christ, the Word, whose teaching remains normative for the Church in all times and seasons, and which are the criteria by which those times and cultures are judged? Or, as some imagine Vatican II believed, do we start with the modern world and the concrete, existential human situation, tailoring the ecclesial response in ways that will "accompany" the world? As H. Richard Niebuhr rightly asked, does Christ measure the culture or the culture Christ?

When he delivered a Lenten retreat for Pope Paul VI, the future John Paul II prophetically remarked at one point that "we are in a lively battle for the dignity of man." In a very real sense, that too is the question the conclave will have to consider when it thinks about what kind of "Vatican II" the new pope should implement.

John Paul II put a huge focus on man because he was acutely aware of how human dignity and rights were under assault in the contemporary world. In that focus, John Paul was very much in line with the turn of modern thought towards the human subject.

But John Paul II never considered man apart from God. One text from Vatican II that he never tired of repeating was Gaudium et spes 22: "Jesus Christ fully reveals man to himself." We do not come to know who man is by examining him in his concrete - and broken - sinful reality, but as who he is supposed to be (and...

by Fr. Paul D. Scalia

For the past week, the death of Pope Francis has dominated the news. For the next several weeks, the election of his successor will do so. And today the Church places before us the story about Thomas's doubt and, therefore, about what it means to believe. (John 20:19-31) In God's providence, the scene orients our thoughts and prayers about the papacy and the next pope.

Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here and see my hands, and bring your hand and put it into my side, and do not be unbelieving, but believe." Now, it's a terrible thing to call this Apostle "Doubting Thomas." Yes, he was "unbelieving." But that wasn't the end of his story. He proclaimed the Gospel in distant lands and was martyred for Christ. He should also be remembered for that.

Of course, there's no getting away from Thomas's doubt: I will not believe. But even there, we can glean some spiritual benefit, which is why the event is recorded. Thomas's error is entirely to our benefit, as it was ultimately to his. It teaches us what it means to believe.

First, faith comes from the Church. Thomas doesn't believe that the disciples had seen the Lord, that Jesus was risen from the dead. But more to the point, he doesn't believe the testimony of the Church. For when the disciples say to Thomas, "We have seen the Lord," it is in effect the Church herself bearing witness to the Resurrection. It is the Church announcing what is to be believed. Thomas doesn't believe in the Resurrection because he doesn't accept the Church's witness.

The only way we know our Lord and His teachings is through His Church. To believe doesn't mean to prove it for ourselves, as Thomas wanted to do. It means to receive and to accept what the Church believes and teaches. An individual's act of faith is inseparable from the Church's faith.

Once, when defending her conversion to Catholicism, Saint Elizabeth Ann Seton blurted out to a relative, I believe everything the Council of Trent teaches - and I have not even read it! That sounds crazy to our individualistic culture. But it captures the truth that our faith rests not on our cleverness or human proofs, but on the Church's authoritative teaching. It is the Church who believes first. Each of us can say I believe only because the Church first says We believe.

Second, faith has content. The disciples proclaim to Thomas a specific truth, the Resurrection. And Thomas makes this article of faith even more specific: "Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands and put my finger into the nail marks and put my hand into his side, I will not believe." This is faith not only in the Resurrection but in the physical resurrection.

We don't believe in God in some vague or general way. We believe in a particular, specific God, Who has revealed Himself by word and deed, and is known by the articles of the Creed.

It's silly to exhort someone to "Just believe!" or "Have faith!" Believe what? Faith in whom? The content of faith makes all the difference. It determines whether we have faith at all. To believe in the triune God gives us the truth and leads us to salvation. To believe in error or merely to have religious opinions leads us astray, no matter how well-intentioned we may be.

Some years ago, then-Prince Charles mused about changing the British monarch's traditional title from "Defender of the Faith" to "Defender of Faith." In fairness, a change of title is probably in order. But the now-King's proposal was typically modern, emptying faith of any content. It rejected "the Faith," implying a specific credal content, for "faith," left unspecified. For our culture, faith is just a vague kind of trust in something, somewhere. . . out there.

This fuzziness about faith leads inevitably to the notion that all religions are the same, just different paths to God. This trivialization of belief insults members of other religions ("You're Muslim? What a coincidence, I'm Catholic!"). More importantly, it fails to take our own faith...

By Fr. Raymond J. de Souza.

Recent popes know how to die liturgically.

The death of Pope Francis is the fourth "octave" death among the last six popes. The Holy Father died on Easter Monday, the second day of the Easter octave.

St. John XXIII died the day after Pentecost in 1963, at that time the second day of the Pentecost octave (now the feast of Mary, Mother of the Church).

In 2005, St. John Paul the Great died on the vigil of the octave of Easter, Divine Mercy Sunday. Pope Benedict died on 31st December 2022, the vigil of the octave of Christmas, the feast of Mary, Mother of God.

St. Paul sixth did not die during a great octave, but on the feast of the Transfiguration, 6th August 1978, a fitting day to go to glory.

After Pope Francis returned from the hospital in late March, his physicians reported that he had almost died twice, and at times was so enfeebled that he could only sign official documents with the initial "F" rather than his name. He was weak and barely able to speak in his public appearances. It was likely that this would be his last Holy Week. While it was not expected that he would die Easter Monday morning, Pope Francis did have to decide how he would spend the last Holy Week of his life. He did so in admirable fashion.

It was an echo of Holy Week twenty years ago, when St. John Paul was too sick to attend any liturgies; too infirm indeed to leave the papal apartments. He came to his window in the Apostolic Palace to give the Easter Sunday blessing Urbi et Orbi but, even though he tried, could not speak.

Pope Francis was in better shape and, although not knowing that he would be felled by a stroke on Monday morning, was evidently preparing for the end. He lived his last Holy Week in an intensely personal way, using his remaining strength in ways that manifested his heart.

On Palm Sunday, he was wheeled to St. Peter's at the end of Mass to greet the faithful. Pope Francis had not celebrated Mass in public in nearly three years due to infirmity, but was present multiple times to preside and preach. As even that became impossible now, the Holy Father nevertheless desired to join the faithful, even if briefly. From early in his pontificate, Francis has had a deep conviction that an important part of his ministry was simply to be present. It was most evident in some of his trips, as when he told typhoon survivors in the Philippines, "I felt that I had to be here."

Before Holy Week, Pope Francis made private visits to St. Peter's, to pray before the Altar of the Chair of Peter, as well as at the tomb of St. Pius X. After visiting the tombs of his predecessors, he went on the eve of Holy Week to St. Mary Major, to pray before the image of the Salus Populi Romani. His own tomb has been prepared nearby. Did he consider it a preparatory visit to his own grave?

He had gone there on the first full day of his pontificate, and more than a hundred times since, including before and after every trip. He may have thought that one last departure was imminent.

During Holy Week, when it was evident that the Holy Father would not be at the principal liturgies, various Cardinal delegates were named. The Vatican routinely handles such protocol matters - Cardinals automatically fall into strict order of seniority when they assemble. Francis chose instead two Cardinals retired from lesser offices for the Chrism Mass and Easter Sunday. For this last Holy Week, personal friendship, not formal precedence, would prevail.

Then came the moving visit to Regina Coeli prison on Holy Thursday. Since his first Holy Week, just a fortnight after his election in March 2013, Francis has chosen to celebrate the Mass of the Lord's Supper outside of the Vatican, usually in a prison. In 2013, he went to the Casal del Marmo youth detention center. That custom, which he brought with him to Rome from Buenos Aires, emphasizes that Jesus was imprisoned on Holy Thursday. There is so much happening on Holy Thursday - Passover, the Eucharist, the priesthoo...

by Fr. Thomas G. Weinandy, O.M.F., Cap.

After his resurrection, Jesus appeared to various people on a number of occasions. He appears to Mary Magdalene, Peter, and the Apostles. Paul enumerates the appearances of which he is aware:

He first appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have fallen asleep. Then he appeared to James, then to the apostles. Last of all, as one untimely born, he appeared also to me. (1 Corinthians 15:5-8)

Moreover, unrecognized, Jesus also appeared to two on the road to Emmaus, one of whom is named Cleopas. (Luke 24:13-43) Traditionally, it is presumed that the two were men and portrayed as such in paintings. The two, however, could have been Cleopas and his wife. After all, it would have been more likely that a woman would invite Jesus to stay with them and then prepare a meal for him.

More importantly, Jesus transforms this meal into a Eucharistic liturgy. In the breaking of the bread and in giving of it to them, "their eyes were opened, and they recognized him." At this point, Jesus "vanished out of their sight."

Now, in all of these Resurrection appearances, Jesus appears and disappears. He comes and goes. What Jesus wants to manifest in these appearances is that he is truly bodily alive. So much is this the case, that in Luke's Gospel, after his appearance to the two on the road to Emmaus, he appeared to the eleven. They were amazed, and "supposed that they saw a spirit."

Jesus responds: "Why are you troubled, and why do questionings arise in your hearts? See my hands and my feet, that it is I myself; handle me, and see; for a spirit has not flesh and bones as you see that I have?" In their still remaining disbelief, Jesus asked: "Have you anything here to eat?" In response, Luke states: "They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate it before them."

That Jesus was truly risen was also "doubting" Thomas's concern. When the Apostles told the absent Thomas that they had seen the Lord, he declared: "Unless I see in his hands the print marks of the nails and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe." Thomas needed proof that Jesus was truly, bodily risen. He too wanted to be assured that Jesus was not just the ghost of a dead man.

Jesus honored Thomas's request. On the Sunday following Easter, Jesus appeared again to the apostles. He said to Thomas: "Put your finger here and see my hands; and put out your hand and place it in my side; do not be faithless but believing." Thomas responded: "My Lord and my God!" The bodily Jesus is truly Thomas's risen Lord and so his saving God.

Now, why, in the above, is the ability to see and touch the risen Jesus, and Jesus' ability, even in his risen state, to eat a piece of fish so important? Is it simply to prove that Jesus has authentically risen from the dead?

Although that is essential for our salvation, it is absolutely indispensable for the Eucharist. Only if Jesus is bodily risen from the dead is the Eucharist the risen body of Christ. What the two on the road to Emmaus ate in the breaking of the bread was Jesus's risen humanity - his risen body and blood, soul and divinity.

I noted above that the risen Jesus appeared and disappeared. He came and he went. Ultimately, Jesus ascended into Heaven, and he will not appear again until the end of time when he will gloriously return on the clouds of Heaven. But it's also true that Jesus has never left us! He does not appear and disappear. He is always present to us in the Eucharist.

In a sense, Jesus' salvific death and life-giving resurrection are for the sake of the Eucharist, for in the Eucharist we come into communion with the risen Jesus. In so doing, we not only abide with him here on earth, but we anticipate our abiding with him forever in Heaven. In the Eucharist, Jesus comes down to earth upon our altars, that he might lift us up into ...

By Msgr. Charles Fink.

But first a note: Be sure to tune in tonight - Thursday, April 24th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the death of Pope Francis, plans for Saturday's papal funeral, the conclave that will begin soon after, as well as other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column...

I wonder if it's really possible for us to understand the incredible mix of emotions Jesus' disciples, men and women, experienced on that first Easter morning. We really have no frame of reference, do we?

Sure, we may know the joy of finding a beloved pet we had lost and never expected to see again. We may have experienced a reprieve from an apparent death sentence after successful medical treatment of a life-threatening illness. We might even have witnessed a seemingly miraculous cure and felt overwhelmed with gratitude to God that our prayers had been answered. All of these things happen, if not routinely, then at least from time to time, and exist within the realm of possibility.

But what Jesus' friends and followers experienced on Easter morning and the days thereafter was impossible. They had seen him scourged to within an inch of his life, then crucified, then pierced through the heart with a soldier's lance, finally laid in a tomb. There is no record before or since of anybody's having endured all that, only to come back, scars, wounds and all, but fresh as a daisy, more alive than ever, capable of things no ordinary living person was ever capable of.

Is it any wonder that it took them some time to process what they were seeing and hearing and touching? Are we shocked that they found it hard to believe their own eyes, that they thought maybe they were seeing a ghost or an apparition of some sort? What they seemed to see wasn't just amazing; it was impossible! It took a little time to put it all together, to remember that with God all things are possible, that Jesus himself had predicted what they were experiencing, that the impossible had indeed happened. And that, after all, it wasn't too good to be true. And they weren't crazy.

We know they came to this improbable conclusion because instead of going back to fishing or tax-collecting and to their families, the Twelve, minus Judas, not long before trembling in fear and inclined to flee for their lives, each began to preach Jesus risen from the dead to Jews, Romans, anyone who would listen, no matter how hostile the audience. Each had years and decades to change his mind, to say it had all been a tragic mistake, but none did. All but John, the youngest, died a martyr's death. John died in exile in his nineties on the Isle of Patmos.

Moreover, what they taught about sex and marriage, love of enemies, and the dignity of the poor was unlike anything anyone had ever taught before. It was received with the same incredulity and hostility as their message that Jesus was the Savior of the world, raised from the dead, seated at the right hand of the Father.

This risen Jesus appeared to Saul, a rabid persecutor of Christians, and turned him into St. Paul, zealous missionary and author of more than a quarter of the pages of the New Testament. Over the centuries, he appeared to others: to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque to reveal the love of his Sacred Heart, to St. Faustina Kowalska to manifest the depth of the Divine Mercy. He spoke to St. Francis of Assisi and changed his life. He did the same to Mother Teresa of Calcutta. He imprinted His wounds in the flesh of Padre Pio and his mark upon every people and civilization He touched.

It would have been understandable if, way back at the beginning, the Apostles, facing an immense, powerful, often brutal Roman Empire opposed to everything they s...

by Anthony Esolen

But first a note. Be sure to tune in tomorrow night - Thursday, April 24th at 8 PM Eastern - to EWTN for a new episode of the Papal Posse on 'The World Over.' TCT Editor-in-Chief Robert Royal and contributor Fr. Gerald E. Murray will join host Raymond Arroyo to discuss the death of Pope Francis, plans for Saturday's papal funeral, the conclave that will begin soon after, as well as other issues in the global Church. Check your local listings for the channel in your area. Shows are usually available shortly after first airing on the EWTN YouTube channel.

Now for today's column.

The eternal does not "develop." That is a contradiction in terms. So says our Lord, in the days before his Passion, when he spoke to his disciples of the last days and the coming of the Son of Man in glory. "Heaven and earth will pass away," he says, "but my words will not pass away." (Matthew 24:35)

His saying so can become too familiar to us. We hear it at Mass every year, but it must have left the disciples dumbstruck. Moses does not say that about himself. Isaiah and Jeremiah do not say it. Such a statement is predicated only of God - as Jesus and his disciples knew. "Lift up your eyes to the heavens," says God, "and look at the earth beneath: for the heavens will vanish like smoke, the earth will wear out like a garment, and they who dwell in it will die in like manner; but my salvation will be forever." (Isaiah 51:6).

The prophecy stands on the border of time and eternity. It is meant not only to convey the future, as Jesus does when he says that the last days shall be as in the days of Noah. (Matthew 24:37) It is meant to turn their eyes beyond time, above the stars, for "in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth." (Genesis 1:1) They have their morning and their evening. They will pass away, but the Word of God, through whom all things were made (John 1:3), "the image of the invisible God" (Colossians 1:15), "Alpha and Omega, the first and the last" (Revelation 1:8), is beyond time, for time, bound to heaven and earth, is also a creature.

Now, at the heart of all modernist notions of evolution lies a trust in time. Given enough time to work in, and the fits and starts of experimentation, whether technological, artistic, intellectual, or political, human beings become better and their lives freer.

With many reservations, we can admit that there is something to this sense of development. It is better, more culturally advanced, to be Wagner composing Lohengrin, than to be an aboriginal wailing out a war dance in the night. Yet Homer composed the Odyssey about 2,700 years ago, and many people say it is unsurpassed for poetic grandeur, coherence, beauty, and psychological insight. Or if it is surpassed, only Dante's Commedia stands above it, and that poem is itself more than 700 years old.

Most of the important ancient Greek cities had public works of astonishing beauty, such as the Parthenon in Athens, or the temple of Diana at Ephesus; do our cities of similar size boast the like?

But even if our progress in cultural matters were regular, reliable, and noticeable (it is not), that still does not mean that Christ and His words are subject to the same experimentation with its successes and failures - for success and failure are but the ratchet-gears of cultural change, and they have a habit of lurching or sticking or slipping even so.

We may learn more about Christ, as through the Holy Spirit He reveals more of Himself, more of the truth, insofar as we are capable of receiving it. But we cannot learn anything other about Him, anything that would contradict what went before; as if some prior truth should vanish like the dinosaurs, or should be cast aside like the horse and buggy.

To believe that the Word of God is the Word of God, not some human word subject to change, is to understand also that God, who used to speak through the prophets, and who gave the Law to Moses by the ministry of angels, "in these last days he...

By Robert Royal.

But first a note: I have long been scheduled to present my new book on the 21st-century martyrs in Rome next week. But the pope's death yesterday means that, in addition to those planned events, I'll be staying over and commenting on the papal funeral and new election both on this site and on television with my colleagues Raymond Arroyo and Fr. Gerald Murray. We covered the conclave (the "Conclave Crew" was the precursor of "The Papal Posse") that elected Francis in 2013 and will do similar duty again in the coming days. Let us all pray for the repose of the soul of Pope Francis and for all God's graces upon the man who will soon become the next successor of St. Peter.

Now for today's column...

Scientists say that, when a strong earthquake occurs, it sometimes causes the rotation of the earth to shift slightly, even minutely changing the shape of the planet and the length of a day. By contrast, it often seems that the Catholic Church and the papacy in these latter days have a weak and not always helpful influence around the globe. But when Pope Francis died yesterday, it was impossible not to notice that, over and beyond all the journalistic chatter, the passing of a pope still shakes up the world. Even the deeply secular, often anti-Catholic news outlets see that.

This papal interregnum is a special time for Catholics to think and act, like Catholics. In the next days, it would be an exceptionally good spiritual discipline, for example, to ignore what most of the secular media have to say in praise or criticism of the pope and to reflect deeply on God's presence in his Church through time and the particular role he has assigned to the successors of Peter. Not all of them were admirable men. Some were not even very Christian. A few were wise. Fewer truly great. But all of them belong to a spiritual order of reality that transcends the usual categories by which we measure world leaders.

Yes, you can, of course, try to apply political criteria to a pope. But it mostly leads to superficiality and foolishness. The notion, for instance, that conservatives opposed Francis while progressives loved him for his critiques of capitalism and advocacy of migrants and the environment - by the way, also major concerns of the "conservative" pope John Paul II (see Centesimus Annus) and Benedict XVI (in particular Ratzinger's beautiful book In the Beginning) - is preposterous. That's the kind of characterization that lazy journalists who see everything through simplistic political lenses use to fill up empty space.

All of that can be better put aside and instead, a Catholic should pray for the repose of the soul of a fellow Christian - a pope, to be sure, and therefore, for a Catholic, a special figure of respect and affection, whatever his flaws and failures. And as for the longer-term effects of his papacy, it's best to leave that to the judgment of time rather than the headlines.

For example, Francis has often been and is again now being touted as a "reformer" - the portfolio he was given early on by the Cardinals who elected him. Francis did scramble the Vatican curial offices, but whether that was a useful reform or "making a mess" only time will tell. The Vatican financial system, too, could have been cleaned up to a large extent by Cardinal Pell, who told me privately just before he died that everything was in place - until he and others were abruptly pulled out without a convincing explanation.

Similarly, the sex scandals led to the publication of a few documents and some weak efforts intended to bring about "reform" of some kind. But even without naming all the names here, though the monster Marko Rupnik must be specified, there was a cloud of friends of Francis accused of grave misdeeds, some even convicted by secular authorities, who were protected and, in some cases, sheltered in Rome. We still await the reckoning needed to root out what can only be called a gay-friendly network that diminishes the spiritual prof...

By Brad Miner.

By now, most readers of this site will know about Blessed Carlo Acutis, the Italian teenager who died in 2006 and will be canonized this coming Sunday, April 27.

And on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of this month, Fathom Events will present Tim Moriarity's new documentary about Acutis - Catholicism's first millennial saint - in special screenings at select theaters across the country. Click here to purchase tickets for yourself, your family, or your parish.

I wouldn't normally add this sort of promotional plug for a film, but Carlo Acutis: Roadmap to Reality (click here for the theatrical trailer) is a fascinating and important film about a remarkable young man, and it deserves a wide audience.

And it's not just a film about soon-to-be Saint Carlo; it's at least as much about the impact of the digital revolution and how we should navigate it as Catholics.

A group of students go on a pilgrimage to Rome under the auspices of the University of Mary in North Dakota. As the trip begins, they surrender their cell phones. The point is to immerse the kids in the Eternal City without the usual obsessive distractions of screen time. And this is not just to ensure the students actually look up at the Sistine Chapel ceiling and not images of it on TikTok; it's as much to liberate them from the isolation, fragmentation, and depression too many kids are experiencing as a result of the weakening bonds of interpersonal relationships that comes from dwelling in the so-called "virtual" world.

The film uses Carlo Acutis as an example of how it's possible to overcome the crisis of ongoing mental, emotional, and spiritual illness among young people. To wit, these data on high school students from the Centers for Disease Control:

29% experience poor mental health

42% have persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness

22% have considered suicide

18% have made a suicide plan

10% have attempted suicide

This is not good.

If young people emulate Carlo Acutis rather than some shallow Internet "influencer," they'll have a better shot at achieving true and lasting happiness.

Carlo loved the Internet and online gaming, and he became a web designer, but he also strictly limited the time he spent online - usually to an hour a day. He did so because he saw the danger of preferring virtuality to reality.

The documentary features a few people who personally knew Carlo Acutis (family and friends), and many more who never met him but who are inspired by him, including priests and bishops, academics and journalists, some of whom are well-known on the Internet.

Their comments about Carlo are interspersed with scenes of the North Dakota kids visiting the highlights in Rome and Assisi. The climactic scene comes when the students visit Acutis' tomb at the Church of Santa Maria Maggiore in Assisi. A number of them are affected by seeing his body. But it's the story of his saintly life - his dedication to the Eucharist, his self-discipline, and his courage in the face of death from a rare and incurable leukemia - that most stirs them. It certainly moved me.

One longs to see young people figure out how to live joyfully in the digital and real worlds, and it's not wrong to worry that this will only become more difficult as "progress" reaches a terrestrial version of light speed.

At the crossroads of quantum computing, artificial intelligence, and transhumanism there may be a point at which the quest for eternal life will become for many a purely and militantly secular scientific endeavor.

For my part, I'm sure of it. The only "material" glitch will likely be the organic human brain. From the dawn of Internet-based computing, we've been speaking a new language about memory - with terms such as storage, random access memory, cache, and using an ever-increasing series of acronyms: ROM, PROM, EPROM, EEPROM, and on and on, rather like the dizzying proliferation of gender identities.

But the brain is deeply intertwined with the soul, I suspect, although it may be ...

By St. John Henry Newman.

But first, A blessed and happy Easter to all from all of us at The Catholic Thing.

Now for today's column...

At Christmas we joy with the natural, unmixed joy of children, but at Easter our joy is highly wrought and refined in its character. It is not the spontaneous and inartificial outbreak which the news of Redemption might occasion, but it is thoughtful; it has a long history before it, and has run through a long course of feelings before it becomes what it is. It is a last feeling and not a first. . . . Accordingly, Christmas Day is ushered in with a time of awful expectation only, but Easter Day with the long fast of Lent, and the rigours of the Holy Week just past: and it springs out and (as it were) is born of Good Friday.

On such a day, then, from the very intensity of joy which Christians ought to feel, and the trial which they have gone through, they will often be disposed to say little. Rather, like sick people convalescent, when the crisis is past, the illness over, but strength not yet come, they will go forth to the light of day and the freshness of the air, and silently sit down with great delight under the shadow of that Tree, whose fruit is sweet to their taste. They are disposed rather to muse and be at peace, than to use many words; for their joy has been so much the child of sorrow, is of so transmuted and complex a nature, so bound up with painful memories and sad associations, that though it is a joy only the greater from the contrast, it is not, cannot be, as if it had never been sorrow.

Therefore now, though it is over, he cannot so shake off at once what has been, as to enter fully into what is. Christ indeed, though He suffered and died, yet rose again vigorously on the third day, having loosed the pains of death; but we cannot accomplish in our contemplation of Him, what He accomplished really; for He was the Holy One, and we are sinners. We have the languor and oppression of our old selves upon us, though we be new; and therefore we must beg Him who is the Prince of Life, the Life itself, to carry us forth into His new world, for we cannot walk thither, and seat us down whence, like Moses, we may see the land, and meditate upon its beauty!

And yet, though the long season of sorrow which ushers in this Blessed Day, in some sense sobers and quells the keenness of our enjoyment, yet without such preparatory season, let us be sure we shall not rejoice at all. None rejoice in Easter-tide less than those who have not grieved in Lent. This is what is seen in the world at large. To them, one season is the same as another, and they take no account of any.

Feast-day and fast-day, holy tide and other tide, are one and the same to them. Hence, they do not realize the next world at all. To them the Gospels are but like another history; a course of events which took place eighteen hundred years since. They do not make our Saviour's life and death present to them: they do not transport themselves back to the time of His sojourn on earth. They do not act over again, and celebrate His history, in their own observance; and the consequence is, that they feel no interest in it. They have neither faith nor love towards it; it has no hold on them.

They do not form their estimate of things upon it; they do not hold it as a sort of practical principle in their heart. This is the case not only with the world at large, but too often with men who have the Name of Christ in their mouths. They think they believe in Him, yet when trial comes, or in the daily conduct of life, they are unable to act upon the principles which they profess: and why? because they have thought to dispense with the religious Ordinances, the course of Service, and the round of Sacred Seasons of the Church, and have considered it a simpler and more spiritual religion, not to act religiously except when called to it by extraordinary trial or temptation; because they have thought that, since it is the Christian's duty to rejo...

By David G Bonagura, Jr.

When I was 24, I was asked at the last minute to substitute teach a religious education class at another parish. I was not given a topic or syllabus, so I racked my brain for something compelling for this sixth-grade class. Then, eureka: I taught about Hell.

The students seemed like the typical religious education crowd: unchurched and uninterested. Yet as soon as I mentioned Hell, ears and hands shot up. They had heard about Hell and knew it as a place of punishment - but nothing more. This little bit was enough to entice them. Who, after all, isn't intrigued by thoughts of eternal punishment, everlasting fire, and evil? There's a reason Dante's Inferno is more popular than his Purgatorio and Paradiso. The stuff of Hell strikes at the gut and inflames the imagination.

In our short time together, the students asked dozens of questions, which opened doors to other topics: God and His plan of salvation, Heaven, the Ten Commandments, sin, Jesus, the Mass

The give and take between them and me made the class far more engaging than the typical method of religious ed classes: e.g., read the textbook aloud, then color something.

These students were not unique: over the years I have been peppered with questions about all things Catholic from people of all ages. And they are right to ask: the Catholic faith plums the deepest mysteries of God, of eternity, of human existence. To seek God requires asking questions. Every answer leads to another question, and every answer, no matter how brilliant, is, to paraphrase St. Thomas Aquinas, only straw compared to the infinite reality that our finite words cannot capture.

Today, with multitudes of Catholics uncatechized, unchurched, and inundated by anti-religious messaging, questions about the faith have a certain cast. First, they often begin, "How do we know that. . .?" The formulation suggests not disbelief or hostility, but puzzlement - and fear. It's as if they want to believe yet, like Thomas on Easter Sunday, they want an empirical guarantee. This refusal to trust - whether God or others - is the pox of Modernity that has destroyed faith in God and faith in reason. Modernity promised individual freedom; it instead brought paralysis and depression.

Second, many questions are shaped by a secular worldview that is hostile to Christianity. In most cases, Catholics do not realize this, but the world has a far stronger influence than the Church on how most of us perceive the faith. Compare: "Why does the Church oppose gay marriage?" versus "What is the Church's teachings on marriage?" The former implies the Church is the nasty oppressor and that gay marriage is a good thing - implications that would not arise from a Catholic worldview. We could multiple examples, especially on moral teachings: "Why does the Church oppose abortion? Artificial contraception? IVF? Human cloning? Embryonic stem cell research?"

There are other types of questions that show the secular world putting the Church on trial: "Why do Catholics think their religion is better than others?" "Why does God allow innocent people to suffer?" "Why can't women be priests?" It's no wonder that Catholics cite not believing the Church's teachings as the top reason for leaving. With the secular world driving the narrative, the deck is stacked against the Church, which cannot easily respond to these deeply embedded assumptions.

Answering these questions, then, requires more than a verbal answer. It requires providing a context, so the answers make sense. The Church's teachings on sexuality, to name one prominent example, only can be understood in light of God's plan for Creation: human beings participate in God's love through marital love, which is stamped into the physical nature of men and women. Without this context, Church teachings can seem like abstract rules instead of emanations of divine revelation.

Providing context also generates opportunity: questioners can be raised up, out of the secular murk th...