On August 1, 1639, a ship sailed up the Saint Lawrence River and dropped anchor before Quebec City. The vessel held some special passengers. On board, four Ursuline missionary nuns looked eagerly upon this new land to which they were bringing the light of the Catholic Faith. Coming ashore, the leader of … Read more
Elizabeth Bruenig’s New York Times op-ed “A Saint’s Sins” was a lengthy indictment of the character and actions of Saint Junipero Serra. It is tempting to refer to it as a masterpiece of character assassination, except that it is not masterful. It recycles modernist and old anti-Catholic attacks that ignore the historical … Read more
As the sun set, the Salve Regina hymn rang out across the Atlantic. Ninety men stood on the decks of three boats, led in prayer by Christopher Columbus, the foreign captain they had come to trust. They had kept the same ritual of evening prayers since they left Spain months ago, but … Read more
“Catholics dropped from 93.1% to 64.6% of the population in 50 years” “Between 1960 and 2010, Brazil saw its share of people declaring themselves Catholic fall from 93.1% to 64.6%” reads the Folho de S.Paulo article based on a report of the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics IBGE.“In a decade, Catholics … Read more
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The fascinating autobiography of Muhammad Moussaoui, who narrates his conversion from Islam to Catholicism, shows miracles of grace and of human correspondence, on the one hand, and on the other hand the terrible harshness of Islamic mentality and persecution of Christians. The book’s title, The Price to Pay, summarizes well what this … Read more
Everyone’s eyes are turned to China, the Middle Kingdom, whose dizzying economic growth never ceases to draw exaggerated praise. However, we are also facing the growing military might of a government that not only has not renounced the Marxist ideology but still maintains the relentless repression typical of Communist police states. Thus, … Read more
In 1900, the Catholic Church was healthy and growing in China. There were forty bishops, about 800 European missionaries, 600 native Chinese priests, and the number of native Catholics throughout the whole of China proper was estimated at 700,000. It was during this time that the Boxer Uprising (1898-1900) started which ushered … Read more
Early on August 6, 1945, a lone American B-29 Superfortress bomber circled in a vividly blue sky over the Japanese city of Hiroshima. The unsuspecting inhabitants on the ground barely glanced at the plane. They were unaware of the deadly payload it was about to unleash on them, ushering in the atomic … Read more
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Service, a Joy Imagine then that to your spirit – bruised by life, calloused or even wounded, hot with fever – one of those figures appears about which your childhood innocence, dead now for many years, used to dream. A queen, all majestic and smiling, leads you by the hand into the … Read more