The Fifth Column

Secular commentators are now decrying the brutality of Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ in a fruitless, last-ditch effort to keep...

Many people have written me personally and provided comments in this space concerning my articles on Catholic education. Here is an outline ...

Many readers seem to think that the Catholic parochial school solves a problem. The argument is that if we get the kids today, they will be ...

America got a wonderful present this Christmas past. On Christmas Eve, 2003, Catholic news services reported the findings of a special commi...

Did you hear the news from Georgetown University? You remember Georgetown. It’s the “Catholic” university whose Jesuit-led administration ad...

“Our parish can get along without the school. But that school cannot get along without the parish.” That shocked the parish council. One gen...

“Religion and politics makes a volatile mix,” or so many are in the habit of saying. That is, after all, the basic justification for Thomas ...

We’ve all seen the advertisements and the reviews. Mel Gibson’s The Passion is an enormous event – if you’re like the rest of us, you’re act...

“You shall treat the alien who resides with you no differently than the natives born among you; have the same love for him as for yourself; ...

“We anathematize [both] the inventors of the new error… [and the pope] who did not attempt to sanctify this Apostolic Church with the teachi...

It happens every time you open a bottle of cough syrup – a very long piece of paper folded dozens of times and covered with very small words...

We often call St. Joseph a stepfather to Jesus, but that isn’t entirely true. While he was a stepfather in biology, he was a true father to ...

Catholics have it great. We get to celebrate New Year twice: once on the first Sunday of Advent, and again on January 1, the feast of Mary, ...

We spent last week contemplating the celibacy of Mary and Joseph. Now we can spend it contemplating the relationship between celibacy and Eu...