Home

Month: April 2012

  • A Mouthful of a Collect

    I went to The Columbia Guide to Standard American English, frankly not expecting to find a flag on the play.

  • Googling the Vatican

    Google makes it easy to search the Vatican website and see how often a given Scriptural passage appears there. Join in the fun, everyone!

  • The Instructive Timing of the Crackdown on Nuns

    “There were two Santa Maria! stories out of the Vatican this week. First, the bad news: The ultra-traditionalists of Marcel Lefebvre’s Society of St. Pius X are another step closer to being welcomed back into the fold. Then there was the even worse news, by my votive lights, that the Vatican is cracking down on…

  • Gregorian Chant is for Radicals

    “I realize that there is no accounting for taste, and that beauty is a fairly subjective topic. However, I believe that Gregorian Chant is the among the most beautiful music in the world…It may never become your favorite music, but it is unlikely you will be oblivious to its beauty.” — Adam Wood

  • The Monks and the Modernist: What the Benedictines Built at Collegeville

    Marcel Breuer would have been proud. So would Baldwin Dworschak. And maybe even St. Benedict as well. Breuer, the New York Bauhaus-trained architect, and Dworschak, the far-sighted abbot of a Benedictine monastery in rural Minnesota, were the central figures in a unique collaboration that produced one of the masterpieces of twentieth-century religious architecture, the acclaimed…

  • New and Revised Mass Settings: Your Reactions?

    It’s been eight months since new and revised Mass settings have come into use. How is it going?

  • Healing of Lefebvrite schism

    Either the Holy See is carrying out a wonderful work of reconciliation, or the Holy See is instrumentalizing the far right to move the goal posts, redefine the center, and chip away at key teachings of the Second Vatican Council.

  • He’s back!

    As of today, I return as moderator of Pray Tell. Huge thanks to Rita Ferrone for her work this past month. – awr

  • Letting Us Pray: A Symposium on Language in Liturgy

    While I appreciate the irenic demeanor of all participants, this very demeanor may have undermined the possibilities for a more substantive discussion. The next stage of the discussion needs to take seriously the demands of crafting an argument that aims at persuading opponents to one’s own position. This entails a thorough understanding of the values…