Beneath the Sistine Chapel’s soaring ceilings, strangers from across the world stand transfixed, their faces tilted upward in unified wonder. Some weep openly, while others gaze in silent reverence. In this sacred space, cell phones are forbidden, and beauty permeates...

Every Sunday at St. Anne Church in Richmond Hill, Georgia, the Hilleary family — mother Michelle, father Brian and five children — receives Communion at the altar rail. “It creates a more sacred space. And it draws your attention to the sacred,” Michelle Hilleary told...

What is “good” Mass music? As a parish music director, I have often pondered this question. The Church gives clear instructions concerning the implementation of music within the Mass. For instance, the Church stipulates that the most important thing to be sung is the...

It’s a popular pastime for Catholics to gripe about the music at their parishes. I should know because I was among those who did so. Instead of continuing the rich tradition of producing and preserving over a millennium of beautiful Catholic music, most parishes...

Along with its sibling “diversity,” “tolerance” has achieved the status of being our culture’s reigning virtue. Given its omnipresence, it is incumbent upon us to be morally serious about its definition and character when applied in the public sphere. The current...

We have a lot of spaceship churches in these parts, here in Northern Virginia, lots of churches in the round. If they look like churches, which most of them really don’t, they look like they may have been Protestant of a certain vintage. The three local churches we...

For all its good intentions, the grand project of Eucharistic Revival is barely limping to its finish line. Applause is in order, for at least it noticed a precipitous loss of faith in the central mystery of Catholicism. But its cure was carefully wrapped in the naïve...