Abraham's Journey
By Charlie Johnston Some years back I was visiting my son when the local Bishop celebrated Mass at his Parish and then stayed for a rather lengthy reception. My son was standing by the punch bowls when the Bishop took a short break to come get a drink. Young Charlie looked at him with a […]
Read More Real People, Real Faith, Real Hope – Short TakesBy Charlie Johnston Miracles I am a realist. Partly because of this, miracles have always struck me as a matter of course. If God IS, of course He is not bound by the normal laws He has instituted to govern the universe. If He is not, it is perfectly natural that there are things we […]
Read More Ballad of the Ordinary Man III: The Apostolate of the LaityBy Charlie Johnston Many are shaken now that the battle over abortion has ventured into the territory of outright infanticide. It is right it should be so. It is hideous to see people who constantly congratulate themselves on their superior morality revealing that they don’t even have the most basic form of decency. It is […]
Read More The End of the Beginning – Part IIIBy Charlie Johnston When he was in St. Louis and Milwaukee, Cardinal Timothy Dolan was an archetype of shrewd orthodoxy, a reliable defender of both the faith and the faithful. It was sometimes delightful to watch him elegantly skewer an attacker with a shrewd riposte. I miss that guy. Dolan announced he would not excommunicate […]
Read More The End of the Beginning, Part IIBy Charlie Johnston As this decade began, every leftist leader in America – and most of the world – was pointing to Venezuela under the guidance of strongman Hugo Chavez, as the icon of what we should all aspire to become. They were downright fawning over how Chavez had shown how a “just” society could […]
Read More The End of The Beginning, Part IBy Charlie Johnston Throughout the world, we are not what we once were. Whatever we will be after the existential agonies of these times have past, it will be something new. Whether sublimely good or horribly bad, it will not be what we have ever been before. There are a host of perils that face […]
Read More Counsel for the New YearI don’t really want to write anything until after Christmas. Maybe just a few notes to tide you over. In the last month I have spoken to about a dozen people I much respect who have had their faith shaken badly by events of this last year. Some have abandoned faith almost altogether, hanging on […]
Read More The Longest NightBy Charlie Johnston The iron rule of economics and of human behavior: What you reward you get more of and what you punish you get less of Conventional wisdom says that the election was a split decision – with Democrats picking up the House and Republicans adding to their majority in the Senate. Conventional […]
Read More A Year of Judgment