Issue: May 2021

Letter from the Publisher

"If the previous issue of The Angelus gave us an exotic tour of the antipodes, Australia and New Zealand, this time, we are back home again, in the thick of real American life all around us..."

Restoring the Broken Ladder of High Designs

"Even when there is separation of Church and state, society can promote virtue and curb vice (which often becomes crime) by ensuring its laws are consistent with natural law and respecting traditional family life. However, in varying degrees, today’s “enlightened” societies reject natural law and the Catholic beliefs about the purpose of our lives on earth as well as what constitutes virtue and vice..."

Law and Order

"Why is it that we adults find the child’s pioneering spirit charming but the same in the teenager alarming? We think our shift justified, even if we cannot explain exactly why. Perhaps we see in youthful inquisitiveness two distinct phases..."

 

Understanding the Social Doctrine of America’s New Religion

"The First Amendment of the Constitution begins with the statement that, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” While legislators and courts have long debated the application of this idea, we know that “separation of church and state” is now a well-established principle that has been used in various ways to exclude Christianity from public places..."

Culture Shock

"It was a French missionary priest who baptized me. He worked so hard for the salvation of souls in Japan. When he was replaced by a Japanese parish priest, our parishioners suffered greatly because he wanted to impose us, in the name of inculturation, what was not incultured by Faith in our parish: communion standing by hand. In the name of tolerance and pluralism, I was alienated..."

Our Apostolic Mandate

"The Sillon—the Furrow—was founded by Marc Sangnier as a forerunner of Catholic Action. Yet, he entertained certain notions which more and more identified themselves with Liberal and Masonic ideas. Here are some extracts touching on the main social issues found wanting..."

The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, The Canon—Part Four

"In this article we continue an examination of the Canon of the Mass, presenting the work of Msgr. Nicholas Gihr in his fundamental liturgical commentary The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: Dogmatically, Liturgically, and Ascetically Explained..."

Meditations on St. John’s Gospel—Chapter Six

"St. John’s gospel is the one which shows us that Our Lord’s Public Life was not limited to one year, an idea one could get from reading the synoptic gospels which mention only one visit of Our Lord to Jerusalem and one Passover; that when He was crucified..."

Saint Thomas More

"While St. Thomas More was a man of great subtlety and complexity, his story in broad outline may be recalled simply..."

Law and Order in the Rule of St. Benedict

"On three different occasions in his Rule, St. Benedict, quoting Scripture, encourages his monks to a high-level of justice in their monastic life. He commands the monk: “Not to do to another what one would not have done to oneself.” Many of his commentators have called this little phrase “The Golden Rule” within the Rule..."

De Valera and Catholic Ireland

"My only sighting ever of President Eamon De Valera’s distinctive profile was in 1961. He was returning by car from a ceremony to commemorate the fifteen hundredth anniversary of St. Patrick’s death..."

Gangster Society, Gangster State, Gangster Church

"If human happiness were dependent purely upon accuracy in predicting the future I ought to feel truly dizzy with success. Looking back at what I have said and written over the fifty two years of my college and academic career, it seems to me that literally everything that I thought would logically happen as a result of the embrace of the so-called “modern” world view—the one espoused by the anti-Christian, naturalist, Enlightenment—has indeed proven to have been totally validated..."

Who Is My Child?

"As a mother leans over the baby cradle, she may think to herself: “Here is this tiny human that I am going to love, care for, and educate for the next twenty years. Who are you, my little Peter whom God has entrusted to my care?” Certainly, this is a fundamental question. Who is this tiny human? The answer depends on the choice of education that will be given to him..."

Around the Boree Log

"Monsignor Patrick Joseph Hartigan wrote poetry under the pseudonym of John O’Brien and became one of the legendary icons of Australian Pioneering literature..."

Questions and Answers

Fr. Iscara answers questions about defining the Liturgy and in what way we ought to love ourselves.

Complex Questions & Simple Answers—Part Six

This article continues the series of straightforward responses to frequently-encountered questions and objections concerning the Catholic Faith. The questions and answers are adapted from Professor Felix Otten, O.P. and C.F. Pauwels, O.P.’s The Most Frequently Encountered Difficulties, published originally in Dutch in 1939.

Louis Veuillot

"One of the many very strong personalities that marked the 19th century, Louis Veuillot made a name for himself with more than just an exceptional intelligence. He was a journalist, a polemicist, a letter writer, an author and first and foremost, a Catholic; the writings he left behind are a record of everything this man of uncompromising conviction did and represented for France, for the Church, and for his century..."

The Last Word

"Utopia is a byword for the ideal state. It is the country in which the ideal laws find the ideal citizens: perfect socialism and democracy, where virtuous citizens with a disdain for gold live in peace and prosperity. And yet, some have secretly scratched their heads...."