A Not-So-Subtle Wake-Up Call from Christ the King The image atop this post is one that we used at the end of my post, “ The God of the Living and the Life of the Dead.” It was written for All Souls Day which just happened to fall in 2020 just days before the most contentious and bitterly divided U.S. election in decades. Its echoes of civil unrest reverberated out of America to circle the globe. So we are using the image again and reposting the link because in the heat of battle a lot of readers missed that post. The image is a powerful one of Christ leading prisoners through the gates of Dachau — or is it Purgatory? It is a hopeful image, and one that reflects the Mind of God as revealed by the Prophet Ezekiel at Mass on the Solemnity of Christ the King: — That describes the Mission of the Church as well, or at least what it should be. I recently received a message from a lawyer who asked if I would be willing to talk with a young priest who has had a catastrophic and very public …
With Jesus before him, Pilate asked the chief priests, ‘Shall I crucify your king?’ They replied ‘We have no king but Caesar.' Only a criminal saw Christ the King.
Veterans Day and Remembrance Sunday first honored the great sacrifices of the First and Second World Wars, and freedom from a global tyranny too easily forgotten.
In 16 years of publication, Beyond These Stone Walls faced some daunting challenges. Among the worst is contending with media and social media anti-clerical bias.
For Catholics, the month of November honors our beloved dead, and is a time to reinforce our civil liberties especially the one most endangered: Religious Freedom.
Of Saints and Souls and Earthly Woes A lot of attention has been paid to a recent post by Pornchai Moontri. Writing in my stead from Thailand, his post was “ Elephants and Men and Tragedy in Thailand.” Many readers were able to put a terrible tragedy into spiritual perspective. Writer Dorothy R. Stein commented on it: A few years ago I wrote of the sting of death, and the story of how one particular friend’s tragic death stung very deeply. But there is far more to the death of loved ones than its sting. A decade ago at this time I wrote a post that helped some readers explore a dimension of death they had not considered. It focused not only on the sense of loss that accompanies the deaths of those we love, but also on the link we still share with them. It gave meaning to that “Holy Longing” that extends beyond death — for them and for us — and suggested a way to live in a continuity of relationship with those who have died. The All Souls Day Commemoration in the Roman Missal also …
The Paris Cathedral of Notre Dame burned in Holy Week 2019. We must now distinguish between that fire and the smoke of Satan that burns away the hearts of believers.
I try to avoid, with mixed success, taking a partisan side in a political campaign. However, having studied for decades the works of Karl Marx and the rise of Communism, every alarm within me has been ringing loudly. A very large percentage of our readers hail from New York, and I would be negligent to ignore my concern for them. Catholic League President Bill Donohue has provided a great public service with this extended essay in the October, 2025 edition of the Catholic League Journal, Catalyst. He has graciously given us permission to reprint it for our readers.
In light of the recent release of hostages, this post is very important to Father Gordon MacRae, who bears witness to the dead and wounded youth of Thailand as AI takes up an account of the second largest ethnic group impacted on October 7, 2023.
The Church honors Pope Saint John Paul II on October 22. Karol Wojtyla became a priest on All Saints Day 1946. On Divine Mercy Sunday 2014 the Church affirmed what the world already knew: he is Saint John Paul the Great.
The Church honors St. Luke the Evangelist on October 18. Author of a unique Gospel and Acts of the Apostles, Luke is the source of the most cited parables of Jesus.
Saint Luke the Evangelist, Dear and Glorious Physician In “ February Tales,” an early post on One of them is a book I stumbled upon at age 16. It was 1969 and I was in my senior year of high school. I wrote a short biography of what my life was like then against the backdrop of a culture in the early days of its long moral and social decline. You could find those biographical paragraphs early on in my recent post, “ Where Were You When Neil Armstrong Walked on the Moon?” Somehow in 1969, I discovered among the tattered paperbacks of the Lynn English High School Library a historical novel that would leave its mark on my mind and soul for decades to come. Though first published in 1959, it is a testament to its literary stature that its most recent hardcover edition was published over a half century later in 2012, twenty-seven years after the author’s death. The book is Dear and Glorious Physician by Taylor Caldwell who described its long path: Taylor Caldwell published forty-three …
In his book, Sins of the Press, Catholic writer and media equalizer David F Pierre Jr, takes aim at a news Goliath: The Boston Globe’s Pulitzer-endorsed Prejudice.
In honor of Charlie Kirk's birthday as President Trump bestows on him posthumously the highest civilian honor, The Presidential Medal Of Freedom, at 4 PM ET today.
We have asked Advanced xAI SuperGrok for an analysis of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast.” The result is inspiring.
AI Overview of “Illumination from Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast” User Query ”? Response from Grok The article, titled “Illumination From Down Under: Hope Springs Eternal in the Priestly Breast,” was published on October 8, 2025, by Father Gordon MacRae on the The piece portrays Valladares as a heroic figure providing “illumination” amid widespread false accusations against priests, drawing parallels to high-profile cases like that of the late Cardinal George Pell in Australia. His book critiques the emotional rhetoric fueling the scandal, the U.S. Bishops’ 2002 Dallas Charter’s “zero tolerance” approach, and organizations such as SNAP (Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) and BishopAccountability.org, which the article accuses of anti-Catholic bias and exploiting the crisis for financial or ideological gain. Valladares argues that while genuine abuse occurred decades ago, the current environment encourages false claims due to massive financial …
A well researched book by Fr. James Valladares casts light on the case of Fr. Gordon MacRae and the state of due process for Catholic priests falsely accused.
It is alarming that it has become necessary for President Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu to negotiate with Hamas for an end to the war in Gaza. Hamas is not a country, nor is it an official platform of any government. Both the European Union and the United States have declared Hamas to be a terrorist organization. The atrocities of October 7, 2023 have never been addressed nor have they been compensated for. The victims of that atrocity are not only Jews, though that would be horrific enough, but many Thai, Filipino and Nepalese young migrant workers were raped, beaten and / or murdered on that day. The world should not forget this.