The End of Time

“The Best Books I Read in 2016” | CWR Staff & Contributors | CWR editors and contributors share their favorite reads from the last year, ranging from theology to fiction, philosophy to history, and much more.

The Pastoral and Moral Crises That Lie Ahead | Fr. Mark A. Pilon | We are witnessing a radical adoption of the absolutizing principle of subjective judgments of conscience and private interpretation of all moral norms.

The End of Time | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | Thoughts on two books, both published in San Francisco within a few years of each other, and both concerned with ultimate things.

The 20 most popular Catholic World Report stories and articles of 2016 | Carl E. Olson | Topics include anti-Catholic history, contraception, converts from Evangelicalism, Cardinal Sarah, "Amoris Laetitia", Islam, Benedict XVI, Fatima, millennials, liturgy, and more.

My Top Ten Movies of 2016 | Nick Olszyk | Favorites include a documentary about a "worship band", the strange story of Elvis and President Nixon, the best movie about Jesus in recent years, and, yes, the newest "Star Wars" movie.

The Saturnalia and St. John Chrysostom: A New Year’s Message | Dr. Randall B. Smith | Idolatrous events like the Saturnalia (and its modern equivalents) promise a lasting joy they cannot possibly deliver.

Militant Islam and the Year of the Mass Delusion | William Kilpatrick | As Albert Einstein is reported to have once said, “insanity means doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”

A Truly Catholic History of North America | Carl E. Olson | Recognizing the foundational Catholic roots of North American history, says historian Dr. Kevin Starr, author of Continental Ambitions, helps put away faulty narratives and negative stereotypes.

Cardinal Burke: "No, I am not saying that Pope Francis is in heresy." | CWR Staff | In an interview with CWR, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke discusses the current controversy over "Amoris Laetitia' and the questions he submitted with three other bishops to Pope Francis.

The Final Confrontation | Ralph Martin | It seems sometimes as if the gates of hell have opened wide, and the demons are flying out to wreak havoc wherever they can.

Scorsese's "Silence" and the Seaside Martyrs | Bishop Robert Barron | My worry is that all of the stress on complexity, multivalence, and ambiguity is in service of the cultural elite today--not that different from the Japanese cultural elite depicted in the film.

The Holiness of Fr. Walter Ciszek, S.J. | Dr. Edward N. Peters | A review of With God in America, a new volume containing various writings and interviews with the remarkable American priest who spent 23 years in Stalinist prisons.

Postmodernity and the "Ideal" Jesus | Dr. Leroy Huizenga | St. Matthew would be surprised to find himself a postmodern Gnostic existentialist progressive, which is exactly how John Shelby Spong presents him in Biblical Literalism: A Gentile Heresy.

G.K. Chesterton, Charles Dickens, and the Joy of Christmas | Dale Ahlquist | Why a radio broadcast from Christmas Day in 1931 still rings with the wonder of “this season of enjoyment.”

Rogue One paints a grittier picture of the Star Wars universe | Andrew Svenning | Despite problems with character development, the new Star Wars movie manages to pull off the difficult task of telling a compelling story of which we essentially already know the ending.

On the Dark and the Light in Star Wars | Thomas P. Harmon | The grittiness of Rogue One doesn’t place the story outside the Star Wars moral universe—it shows the contours of that universe in even greater relief.

Trump and the Journalists | Russell Shaw | Are media members used to being part of the establishment and mirroring its thinking prepared to take a different approach as the Trump era begins?

Pope Francis says the Synod fathers "approved" everything in Amoris Laetitia. Is that true? | Carl E. Olson | More thoughts, observations, and questions about the ongoing debate...

A canonical primer on popes and heresy | Edward N. Peters | Those engaging in loose talk about popes and heresy should be very clear about what is at issue.