If Pope Celestine V is familiar at all to us today, it’s because his name came up in 2013 during the resignation of Benedict XVI. As one of only a handful of popes who had previously abdicated, the erstwhile Peter of Morrone was perhaps the most hapless selection to the... Read More →

  A few weeks ago, I attended the world premier of “Tomo ni Ikiru: Shoka Kanazawa Shoko,” a documentary about the life and work of Kanazawa Shoko, the world’s greatest living calligrapher. The title means “Living Side by Side.” During opening remarks, the film’s director... Read More →

    A cartoon by Erika Sjule in the New Yorker magazine of May 8, 2023, shows a man and woman sitting at a table and the man declaiming, “If only every summer were autumn, and every autumn spring, and every late spring summer, and every winter only the holiday season,... Read More →

    I’ve always admired the title of the organization “Priests for Life”—let’s not go into the controversies or scandals—as an ingenious name because it is a fundamentally priestly role to be for life. And what I mean by a “priestly” role here is not specifically... Read More →