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It is an almost impossible question: What would you include or exclude if you were creating your own religion? What do you prefer to see in your Church unboxing, as you might prefer in a cosmetics or shoe unboxing? What would you click away from? The word religion necessarily conjures up the idea of a system of beliefs and practices that we do not, indeed cannot, make up. And with rare exceptions among genuine psychopaths or the most ardent ideologues, even people who explicitly eschew est …

As we approach the unapproachable God, we have to pass through his Ten Commandments. We examine our conscience to unearth ways we have said “no” to God. This is a practice that should be done often, certainly weekly, if not daily! To know our sins is not easy and to name them is even more difficult, so it takes constant practice. It also requires the cultivation of humility and self-knowledge to be able not only to say, “I have greatly sinned” but “here is how and …

Christian apologetics arose during a time of persecution in the 200s . . . and not much has changed between then and the 2000s.  What Rome started then, the secular culture continues now, but often in even more vile and vicious ways. Whereas a person living in the second century was utterly convinced that something numinous governed the universe and that truth was both discoverable and demanding, modern man mocks both of those realities: if there is a god, he must be a moral monster for al …

In the midst of unspeakable chaos, we must remember that God sends men and women—saints—who are most needed at the time.St. Faustina Kowalska (1905-1938), who would make known to the world the message of Divine Mercy, confirms that principle. In his divine Providence, God sent her into a world on the eve of unspeakable mercilessness. What is even more fitting is that she was born in Poland, where World War II began with Hitler’s invasion. The Catholic biographer J.K. Huys …

To judge by some very recent controversies, you might think that scholars are bitterly divided over this question. But in reality, that Jesus really existed is a mundane and rarely contested fact of history. As Bart Ehrman, an agnostic scholar who is widely regarded as an expert on New Testament documents, writes, “The view that Jesus existed is held by virtually every expert on the planet.”When skeptics ask, “Is there evidence for Jesus?” they usually mean “Is th …