A recently-published study led by university professors from Britain and the U.S.A. proves scientifically that lack of religious faith and practice plays a big part in depression. The robust study, Religion and Depression in Adolescence, found that the more religious a young person is, the less risk there is of developing clinical depression and mental health problems. Conversely it shows that the less religious a person, the greater risk there is of an increasing severity of depression. The study also found that when there is a strong increase in religiosity (for example, someone who doesn’t normally go to Mass or confession starts to go regularly) the risks of severe or moderate depression decrease by eleven percentage points. “Perhaps the most surprising finding is that the effects were stronger, almost two-thirds stronger, in individuals with the most severe symptoms of depression, the most difficult to treat,” the researchers explain.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

As we enter into a time of reflection, we consider the experience of early missionaries and Indigenous Peoples when they first encountered one another.

We associate Advent with penance and with family. The Church’s waiting for the Lord is a time of penitential preparation for the great feast of Christmas. For those whose families include difficult personalities, even in years without pandemics and elections, notions of family and penance fit together easily, no effort required. Christ guides us in Matthew to leave “houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children.” (Luke and some translators of Matthew include wives, which can reasonably extend to husbands). At least a short break from argumentative (or worse) relatives might be a welcome start to that hundredfold return He promises.

There is a certain irony in today’s Solemnity of Christ the King. An irony that touches on the subtlety of His Kingship and the purpose of it. In short, we celebrate today the very title that our Lord Himself avoided. When the crowds went to make Him King, He withdrew from them. (Jn 6:15) When Pontius Pilate asked Him directly, He gave the elusive response, “You say that I am a king;” (Jn 18:37. Although today we proclaim Him King of the universe, in His earthly life He desired to conceal His Kingship, to be merely “the Son of Man.”

In 1969, then Father Joseph Ratzinger said in a radio broadcast in Germany: “it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith.” Prescient as always, Ratzinger was speaking about what then looked like a Church in deep turmoil. Yet he knew that it was only the beginning.

In the popular mind, the pharisses came across as the quintessential villians in the hero's story.

In the foreword to the first volume of his Jesus of Nazareth, Benedict XVI reveals the deep theological and pastoral concern that inspired his labors. Owing to certain currents in biblical studies from the 1950s on, an impression has become widely diffused that “we have little certain knowledge of Jesus and that only at a later stage did faith in his divinity shape the image we have of him.”

What’s the difference between a hypocrite and a sinner? They look an awful lot alike. The hypocrite presents himself one way and then acts another. The sinner deliberately chooses what he knows he should not choose. They both suffer an interior division. Indeed, we ourselves may feel like hypocrites when we sin, when we choose contrary to what we believe. Still, we sense a difference between the two. We rightly intuit that not everyone who sins is for that reason a hypocrite.

Some years ago, a friend told me about how he’d chosen the title of his book, which was about to appear. He wasn’t primarily a writer. He’d long worked with the homeless in San Francisco – until he saw what was really going on. He went to bed one night, praying to come up with a title, which had been elusive. He woke with what he knew was exactly right: Lying for Justice. His book argued that social justice activists claimed people were homeless because of capitalism, racism, sexism, etc. Then, as now, those were sometimes factors. But by far, the homeless suffered from psychological problems, drug and alcohol abuse, and – most commonly – family breakdown.

A visitor in the heart of downtown Montreal might get a feeling of déjà vu upon seeing the Cathedral-Basilica of Mary, Queen of the World (Cathedrale Basilique Marie-Reine-du-Monde). This reaction is typical for those familiar with Vatican City: The Montreal cathedral, consecrated in 1894, is a replica of St. Peter’s Basilica. A brochure compares the sizes: St. Peter’s is 700 feet long; Mary’s cathedral-basilica stretches 333 feet. St. Peter’s cupola has a 130-foot diameter; this cathedral’s is 75 feet.

Liberalism reduces Christianity to slogans; slogans are a substitute for thought.” That’s how Dartmouth College English professor and National Review editor the late Jeffrey Hart, my revered teacher and friend, thus categorized the anti-intellectual distortions that we are now being peddled by the cancel culture that plagues our society and the Church. The promoters of the liberal spirit in religion, which was defined by St. John Henry Newman as the anti-dogmatic principle, will not tolerate any contradiction of their dictatorship of relativism sloganeering. The only dogmas to which they demand assent are the latest never-to-be-questioned slogans used in the ongoing project to dismantle the Church’s doctrines, especially her moral teachings.

When we care about something, we say it “counts,” and indeed we count it. Every married couple can tell you exactly how many years they have been married. If you truly care about losing weight, you must count calories. Good examinations of conscience involve assigning numbers (how many times did I remember Mary today?), at least the binary pair, 1 = yes and 0 = no. We have it on good authority that the being who loves us the most keeps count of the number of hairs on our heads.

We should stop trying to evangelize Protestants, some Catholics say. “Let’s get our own house clean first, before we invite our fellow Christians in,” someone commented on a recent article of mine that presented a Catholic rejoinder to a prominent Baptist theologian. Another reader argued that, rather than trying to persuade Protestants to become Catholic, we should “help each other spread God’s love in this world that seems to be falling to pieces before our eyes.” As a convert from Protestantism, actively engaged in ecumenical dialogue, I’ve heard this kind of thinking quite frequently. And it’s dead wrong.