Robert Royal, writing from Rome, on the Pre-Synodal Meeting of youth opening there today. It’ll be a miracle if it gets beyond weak sociology.

Robert Royal: It is good that Pope Paul VI and Oscar Romero will be canonized. Both faced troubling times and stood up for Truth.

Robert Royal on the ongoing, radical recasting of marriage and the Church’s understanding of the Eucharist . . . and her very self.

Robert Royal writes that religious liberty and marriage hang by one SCOTUS vote because the counterculture has infiltrated schools, media, and culture.

Robert Royal: We must have rational emotions, which are crucial to our earthly and spiritual lives. As is grace.

Robert Royal: The Vatican seems to be stumbling in its relations with a regime that we can be sure will not respect the freedom of the Church.

Robert Royal notes that tomorrow we’ll witness the 45th annual March for Life in Washington, a stirring yet sober reminder that the battle isn’t over.

Robert Royal offers a meditation on Christmas, with an assist from G.K. Chesterton, who reminds us that joy is a true gift, and not just on December 25th.

Robert Royal: If readings at any time of year remind us of how God “comes down” to become one of us, it’s those of Advent no matter what language you read.

Robert Royal on a new book about Papa Bergoglio: When the pope does not much feel bound by the tradition or impartial laws he has inherited, what then?

Robert Royal and his wife were in a serious accident, which got him thinking about the art of dying well.

Robert Royal on the implications of the USCCB’s fall voting: an encouraging pro-life outcome, which is a strong message for youth.

Robert Royal: Post-“Amoris laetitia” we have entered a period of confusion that will take time to repair – as will the restoration of Church unity.

In the past week, the Czech Republic elected an anti-establishment billionaire, Andrej Babis, as prime minister. The New York Times…

My friends and family sometimes berate me (gently) for my longstanding habit – since my teen years – of reading…

The world did not tilt on its axis or end yesterday, as some devotees of an apocalyptic view of Fatima…

People sometimes write me to complain that much online commentary is too negative. That TCT and other sites do not…

My son John Paul once asked me for something he could read about Catholicism. I suggested Joseph Ratzinger’s Introduction to…

Robert Royal describes the movement within the Catholic Church to diminish not only tradition but reason itself.

Robert Royal urges Catholics who are orthodox in their beliefs to resist the political trend to treat the Faith as what amounts to a hate crime.

The Catholic Thing presents the words of Pope St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis on work and working men and women. Work is fundamental.

Robert Royal on the political manipulation of history. People suffering from cultural amnesia and self-deceived about their own moral purity cannot be allowed to set the terms of debate.

Robert Royal seeks clarity on some of our recent troubles in reflections on the beauty of the natural world, with assists from Dylan Thomas, Gerard Manley Hopkins, and Plato.

Robert Royal writes of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein) on her feast day: a Jewish philosopher who became a Carmelite nun and, ten years later, was murdered at Auschwitz.

Robert Royal on the recent anti-American article by an Italian Jesuit and an Argentinian Presbyterian that attacks American Catholics and Evangelicals without actually understanding them.

Robert Royal writes from the Slovak Republic that it’s right to feel gratitude for America, as towards family and friends, imperfect all, who yet have been our benefactors.

Robert Royal on James Joyce and the modernist desire to escape the “nets” of tradition, and what we can learn from them.

Robert Royal notes that the progressive future can’t be great since it doesn’t concern itself with the future of children and societies fertile enough to reproduce themselves.

Robert Royal in Italy, writing from Rome’s March for Life, notes the endurance of lies: the Communist one about utopia and the illiberal one about abortion.

Robert Royal rallies our readers to support The Catholic Thing. Big things have happened; bigger things are coming.

Robert Royal writes that religious literature is not easy to write, at least in what’s left of our Western culture. But Karol Wojtyla managed to get it right in his poetry.

Robert Royal reviews the new book by Austin Ruse, “Littlest Suffering Souls: Children Whose Short Lives Point Us to Christ,” stories that had their birth in The Catholic Thing.

Robert Royal on our materialism and misplaced narrowness and self-sufficiency, which make the Incarnation and Resurrection almost unbelievable.

Robert Royal notes that in Europe and the U.S. there was once a substantial a body of influential Christian humanism, now failing without theism.

Robert Royal on Dante’s understanding of lust, the perversion of one of our best qualities: the ability to love. Lust’s a counterfeit of God’s love.

Robert Royal files his latest report on the Vatican Workshop on Biological Extinction. Once again, we see an attitude among some in the Church that is dismissive of any dissent. Read more.

There’s lots of talk here about how the U.N. is providing funding to the PASS and how eager some figures in the Vatican are to be accepted by these large international bodies. That seems indisputable, but all that has unfortunately diverted attention from the fact that there are legitimate questions about our relationship with nature that need to be addressed. Read more.

Why “odd”? Because scientists who think the Church is “finally” getting over a little of its hostility to science or who believe that the Church needs to get with pills and condoms are invited. And other scientists or scholars with knowledge of ecological questions who are also faithful Catholics are kept out. An odd way to run a Pontifical academy. Read more.

The sponsor decided late that this event would not be open to the public or the press, leaving in the lurch those who’ve come from far distant places. Read more.

Robert Royal reviews the new book by Archbishop Charles Chaput. We need to respond to evil, not only with arguments but by the way we live.

Robert Royal details recent media attacks on Cardinal Raymond Burke, whom the New York Times and Washington Post fancy a conspiratorial figure.

Robert Royal on the importance of approving Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary. Without improvement, schools will continue to fail our students.

Robert Royal writes that we are not in a war against Islam but in a perpetual struggle against all those who threaten human freedom and dignity.

Pope Benedict once noted that it’s wrong to think of Christianity – on the model of Judaism and Islam –…

You wouldn’t want to bet on what anyone knows these days, but there was a time when almost every literate…

It’s not hard to understand why many secular people in the West were fascinated by a figure like Fidel Castro….

On this final day: “The level of nervousness and uncertainty one hears from every quarter in Rome is something without precedent.” Read more.

Fifteen years ago, when I attended my first consistory, I was struck by the prayer that the new cardinals should be prepared to bear witness to Christ, even to the point of death. In those halcyon pre-9/11 days, I both appreciated the sentiment, but thought of it as a remote possibility. Sadly, that’s no longer the case. Read more.

I’ve been in Rome less than a day and my head is already swimming with rumors – and several indisputable facts – surrounding what might otherwise have been an ordinary weekend consistory to welcome new cardinals. Read more.

The first Consistory (the formal event where the pope elevates new members to the College of Cardinals) that I ever attended was in 2001. . . . At the time, we did not notice that the list . . . included . . . an obscure Argentine prelate: one Jorge Mario Bergoglio. Read more.