Mission and Communion in Pope Leo’s 2025 Christmas Greetings
The two themes of Pope Leo’s 2025 Christmas Greetings are mission and communion. Pope Leo XIV explains that the Church’s missionary character “flows from the fact that God himself first set out toward us and, in Christ, came in search of us. Mission begins in the heart of the Most Holy Trinity…. The first great […]
Joseph, Most Obedient
The Gospel reading for this Fourth Sunday of Advent is the same as for this past Thursday, which elicited an earlier post on Joseph, Most Just. In Pope Francis’s Apostolic Letter Patris Corde, this passage elicits reflection on St. Joseph’s obedience:
The Separation of Eschatology and Politics
There is a phrase that captures a mindset that Catholics—in particular, American Catholics, I believe— need to guard against. This phrase is “mater si, magistra no.” The mindset it captures is affirmation of the Church as mother, but rejection (or at least non-affirmation) of the Church as teacher. This phrase arose out of the response […]
There is no “I” in A.I.
The New York Times has an insightful piece on the fundamental deceitfulness of current versions of GenAI chatbots. These “AI”-powered chatterbots present as an “I,” and invite the user to address the interface as a “you.” This is false in both directions. Just as there is no personal “I” in A.I., neither is there intelligence. […]
Joseph, Most Just, Thursday in Advent
One of the titles of St. Jospeh is, “Most Just,” or San Giuseppe, Giustissimo. One source for this is the Gospel reading for the Third Thursday in Advent. Here is the NAB version used in the American lectionary: This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about.When his mother Mary was betrothed to Joseph,but […]
The guiding principle of JPII’s jurisprudence: “Hominum causa omne ius constitutum est.”
Pope St. John Paul II summarized his approach to jurisprudence and the juridical science in an address on the occasion of receiving an honorary degree in jurisprudence in connection with the 700th anniversary of La Sapienza University of Rome. “I gladly accept this recognition,” he stated, “which I consider as conferred upon the Church for […]
Day 1 of the Christmas Novena
PrayMoreNovenas.com is an online ministry that has had some staying power. The simple model is to email daily novena prayers to people who sign up for these mailings. Their original novena was a Christmas Novena, and if you’d like to join in, today is Day 1.
Docility and daring in St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli
The feast day of St. Virginia Centurione Bracelli is celebrated on December 15, the date on which she died in 1651. In his homily at the Mass celebrating the canonization of St. Virginia in 2003, Pope St. John Paul II described her as “a simple and active saint”: In response to the exhortation of the […]
Roses in winter on Gaudete Sunday
Today is Gaudete Sunday, the third Sunday in Advent. We mark this by lighting the rose-colored candle on our Advent wreath, and priests wear rose-colored vestments while celebrating Mass. I took the occasion earlier today to light the Roses in Winter candle from Corda Candles. I didn’t realize until finding the link just now in […]
Precipitation as a kind of imprudence
Those frustrated with the generality of the guidance to “be prudent” may find specification helpful by considering various kinds of imprudence. Aquinas’s explanation of precipitation is helpful when one considers the hierarchically ordered nature of our capacities for human action: Precipitation is ascribed metaphorically to acts of the soul, by way of similitude to bodily […]
A Prayer on the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe
Today the Church celebrates the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The concluding prayer for Morning Prayer seems particularly fitting to share on Ordinatus because of the way it links God’s justice in our hearts with God’s peace in the world. For that link to be effective, God’s justice must not only infuse our hearts […]
Should Virginia Law Require a Health Care Provider to Lie About a Patient’s Cause of Death?
In preparing to present at an upcoming CLE on assisted suicide in Virginia, I’ve been looking at a bill that passed the Virginia Senate by vote of 21-19 (SB 280). This bill would have kept in place the general prohibition against assisted suicide while creating an exception for certain kinds of assisted suicide given a […]
St. John Roberts, ora pro nobis
TIL that there is a St. John Roberts. I have a practice of mentioning a saint of the day as part of my morning drop-off routine at my younger children’s K-8 school. Today’s was not as much a saint of the day, as it was “Our Lady of Loreto, pray for us.” I usually take […]
Cooley on Natural Rights in Non-Contractual Wrongs Treatise 1st ed. 1879
In December 1878, Thomas Cooley put the finishing touches on A Treatise on the Law of Torts or the Wrongs Which Arise Independent of Contract. He described the purpose and intended audience in the Preface: In preparing the following pages the purpose has been to set forth with reasonable clearness the general principles under which […]
The Champion of the Immaculate Conception
Everyone’s focused today on the big SCOTUS argument. Here’s a better Scotus argument. This film clip dramatizing a debate between Blessed John Duns Scotus (the “Subtle Doctor”) and two representatives of the Dominicans is appropriate for this December 8.
The Double Coincidence of September 17 at The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law
I’m reliably informed that we’re late to the game of celebrating a very rare Pythagorean theorem day: 9/16/25. (The last one was March 4, 2005 I believe.) Fortunately, we at the The Catholic University of America Columbus School of Law can beat that with “The Double Coincidence of September 17.” One double coincidence is personal […]
Alicea NYT Op-Ed, “The Supreme Court is Divided in More Ways than You Think”
The end of OT 2024 at SCOTUS will call forth a variety of analyses, including the of the less helpful sort that reveal more about the analyst than the Court. Before those end-of-term reviews begin to proliferate, it is worth looking back at the excellent NYTimes op-ed by CIT Director Joel Alicea, The Supreme Court […]
Lon Fuller on “The View of Man Implicit in Legal Morality”
Lon Fuller’s account of the “internal morality of law” is sometimes described as a kind of “merely procedural natural law theory.” But Fuller also held that “the most important respect in which an observance of the demands of legal morality can serve the broader aims of human life generally” is something that “lies in the […]
Berman’s 10 Characteristics of the Western Legal Tradition
Today’s feast of St. Joseph the Worker draws one’s attention at this university-based Catholic law school to the work of those in the legal profession. The “entrusting of legal institutions to professionals” and “the training of those professionals in a discrete body of learning” are two of the ten characteristics of “the Western legal tradition” […]
A triple coincidence on March 25?
The foreword by John Behr to Jordan Daniel Wood’s The Whole Mystery of Christ begins by passing along a striking claim: “According to The Martyrology of Jerome, ‘On March 25, our Lord Jesus Christ was crucified, conceived, and the world was made.’” This was the first I’ve heard of this potential coincidence. Is it true? […]
