A Closer Look | Kenneth Craycraft Every year, we are reminded that Lent should not merely be about giving up habits or pleasures but also adding some positive spiritual discipline. We might give up caffeine or alcohol, for example. Or we might add a spiritual or corporal work of mercy, …

Lent is a season of moral and spiritual growth. For some, the principal approach is to deprive oneself of non-essential goods; we give up some pleasure or luxury. Others observe Lent by performing spiritual or corporal works of mercy; we add some activity or assume some burden. And, of course, …

A Closer Look | Kenneth Craycraft In the 33rd and final canto of Dante’s epic 14th century poem, Paradiso, St. Bernard guides Dante to the destination of his pilgrimage, where he achieves the Beatific Vision. Dante describes his final ascent to Paradise in terms of the restoration of balance, harmony …

by Kenneth Craycraft In 1979, the rock group Pink Floyd released a concept album called “The Wall.” Written by now disgraced band leader Roger Waters, the record is angry, depressing, and claustrophobic. It is the fictional story of a cynical, despondent rock star who attempts to construct a wall around …

Even before you reach the end of this sentence, you will begin to hum in your head the tune of the silly little song, “High Hopes,” written by Jimmy Van Heusen and Sammy Cahn and made famous by Frank Sinatra. “Just what makes that little old ant think he’ll move …

For several years, many of us Catholics in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati have been including in Mass a prayer for vocations, written by Archbishop Emeritus Dennis M. Schnurr shortly after his move to Cincinnati. I must confess that, initially, I mildly resisted the general theme of this prayer. This is …

The first creation account in Genesis 1 is among the most misunderstood chapters in the Bible. The confusion comes less from the words on the page than from a prejudicial determination of what Genesis 1 is trying to tell us. But it is in its very literary form that the …

The Catechism of the Catholic Church refers to solidarity as a “virtue” (no. 1942). Like any other virtue, solidarity develops through the practices and habits of moral agents. Solidarity is both essential to true human being and the virtue by which our fallen social nature is to be restored. The …

Over the first several weeks of his pontificate, Pope Leo XIV has staked out a deliberate perimeter of emphases that appears to encompass the dominant theme of his pontificate. The first stake in the ground was the choice of his name. Beginning with Pope St. Leo I—also known as Leo …

August begins the annual ritual of children dragging their parents to the shopping mall for new clothes, backpacks and sneakers, in preparation for their return to classrooms, playgrounds and athletics fields. The nervous anticipation of going “back to school” is as common to the American experience of growing up as …