A long time ago, we hired a team of carpenters and plumbers to renovate a bathroom. Moe, Larry, and Curly were not masters of their craft. I should have fired them as soon as I saw what they had done to one of the doorways, removing the support for one of the uprights...

The memories are still vivid, even though it was a long time ago. Having been born in 1956, I’m just old enough to remember the confusing and tumultuous era of “the changes” that came after the Second Vatican Council, particularly regarding the Mass. One elderly...

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...