In 1273, the year before he died, St. Thomas Aquinas was in Naples working on the third part of his Summa Theologica. Having just completed the section on the Eucharist, he was praying in front of the crucifix on the altar, before Matins, and caught up in mystical ecstasy in the presence of Christ. Three [...]
The morning dawn gave way to overcast skies and as the day slowly progressed the skies became gloomier and gloomier. Just outside the city there is a darkness on the edge of town. Many different emotions fill the air. There is a buzz as people make last minute preparations for the feast that they will [...]
Here I come around the final bend of my long journey into the Catholic Church. I could not have imagined it ten years ago. Six years ago I would have found the proposition that my wife and I would become Catholic at the Easter Vigil mass of 2010 to be incredibly absurd. But God never [...]
Tom Riello interviews Tom Brown on his recent article on the issue of the canon of scripture. How do we know which books belong in the Bible? Who has the authority to answer such a question? These issues are addressed in this podcast episode. Download the MP3 here.
Life can be and often is a valley of tears. Who can deny the realities of tragedy and senselessness, stories of children being orphaned or abused. Stories of late night phone calls informing you of to come immediately to the hospital or a visit from the authorities informing you of the loss of a loved [...]
0. This began as a comment on Bryan’s piece about authority and apostolic succession. It got long, and I decided it should either be a post in its own right or that it shouldn’t be posted at all. It’s possible it shouldn’t be posted at all. I decided to make it a post in its [...]
Recently I was asked for my evaluation of Doug Wilson’s article titled “Authority and Apostolic Succession.” For the sake of any others who may be interested in a Catholic evaluation of Doug’s article, I am posting my evaluation here.
Throughout the past year on Called to Communion, the various blog posts and full-length articles by the contributors have been met with objections of various stripes and sizes. It has been a mixture of excitement, hope, prayer, frustration, and calls for mercy for me to read many of those posts and the dialogue that has [...]
One major point of circular reasoning with Protestant thought on the identification of the canon is the concept of the canon as its own standard. For example, the Reformers claimed that the New Testament books were obviously canonical because of their apostolic character. But according to them where do we learn of the apostolic faith? [...]
On this day, March 7, in the year 1274, seven hundred and thirty six years ago, St. Thomas Aquinas departed from this life, and thus today is his traditional feast day.1 Last year, on this day, I began a series of posts intending to show how St. Thomas’s theology helps explain the soteriology set forth [...]
