Thursday, November 15, 20180146Humanae Vitae is not an elegant treatise on the Church’s traditional teaching against artificial contraception. It lacks the philosophical brilliance of Pope John Paul II’s theology of the body, which appeared a decade or so after Pope Paul VI absorbed crushing criticism of his encyclical “on human life.” Cardinal Ratzinger...
Thursday, October 18, 20180355My friend Father Josh Whitfield of St. Rita Catholic Church recently wrote a fine Dallas Morning News op-ed in which he suggests that America is experiencing a political and cultural unraveling, both of which are symptoms of a more terrible spiritual malady.
Saturday, September 22, 2018053By Father Thomas Esposito
Special to The Texas Catholic
Almost every semester, I teach a course for freshmen at the University of Dallas entitled “Understanding the Bible,” though most students prefer the hipster nickname of “Under the Bible.” I do not believe that I will ever tire of teaching this introductory class. I’m...
Saturday, August 25, 201801033>“Thus says the Lord God: Behold, I am coming against these shepherds. I will take my sheep out of their hand and put a stop to their shepherding my flock, so that these shepherds will no longer pasture them. I will deliver my flock from their mouths so it will not become their food”
Sunday, June 17, 20180253We derive our words “graduate” and “graduation” from the Latin gradus, meaning “step” or “degree” (as in stages or metrics, not a pun connected to the granting of a diploma). The sense, of course, is that new graduates have taken a step forward and are moving up the ladder of achievement. The sunny buoyancy of parents...
Friday, May 11, 20180240Two of the sacraments of initiation, Baptism and Confirmation, are one-time events in a Catholic’s life, not to be repeated again. They are certainly spiritual milestones, and the graces conferred through the signs of water, oil, and the laying on of hands grant the person receiving them a beautiful beginning to the life of faith. The...
Wednesday, April 11, 2018087One of the great titles bestowed by the church upon Mary Magdalene is “the apostle to the apostles.” According to the Gospel of John, Mary, still sorrowful on “the first day of the week” (John 20:1), is the privileged recipient of the first Easter message that Jesus’ body no longer rests in the tomb. After racing to Simon Peter...
Friday, March 16, 20180155From the cross, Jesus gives his followers a final instruction on how to read both the Scriptures and his own sacrificial death. Only the Roman soldiers crucifying him and the small ensemble of his followers, St. John and his mother among them, hear his anguished cry moments before he expires: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken...
Thursday, February 15, 20180426
By Father Thomas Esposito
Special to The Texas Catholic
Israel became a nation in the barren desert of the Sinai Peninsula. The formative experience of fleeing Egypt united them as a band of refugee-brothers, but nostalgia for their enslaved lives quickly overruns them at the first sign of hunger and thirst.
What Moses...
Friday, January 19, 2018082The Greek word scholē originally denoted a state of leisure or spare time, and gradually came to describe conversations held within a time free of specific duties. The word moved into Latin, and eventually was employed to define a group of people engaged in leisurely discussions, or even the place itself where those discussions were...
