Culture Cues

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America’s Catholics are facing a crisis of authority. The social and economic realities of mass migration contradict the Vatican’s facile theologizing on open borders. The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB), in accord with Pope Francis’ globalist conceits, opposes President Donald Trump’s resolve to curtail illegal migration. Catholics are caught between fidelity to ecclesial leadership and obedience to the just laws of our own country. Francis’ hostility to Trump is no secret. Damian Thompson, former editor of Britain’s Catholic Herald, wrote: “In 2016, Francis gave his blessing to the Hillary Clinton campaign’s Catholic front organizations, motivated not just by their shared obsession with anti-racism and climate change but contempt for Donald Trump.” Continue Reading
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Archbishop Fisichella, lead director of Jubilee 2025, chose not to launch Luce, the Vatican’s first-ever mascot, from the Vatican. Instead, he unveiled it at Lucca Comics & Games, an annual comic book convention in Lucca. Dedicated to comics, video games, animation, science fiction and fantasy novels, this is the largest comics festival in Italy, and the second largest in the world. A three-storey high inflatable Luce floated  over the exhibition space set aside for Luce and Friends.   Catholic media underplayed Fisichella’s move for good reason. Continue Reading
Lady Columbia

Politics is outside the bailiwick of Studio Matters. Yet election of the once-and-future President Trump was so remarkable, so exhilarating in its implications, celebration is mandatory. There should be dancing in the streets. Fireworks, too . But all I have is words. Permit me, please, just a few of them. Just this once.    It was June, 2015, when Donald Trump came down the escalator in Trump Tower to announce his run for the presidency. I scoffed at the news. Continue Reading
Ripperger, Exorcism, et al., Part 2

Catholic televangelism is not what it was when Fulton Sheen pioneered it. In the following clip from a 2023 segment of the Chris Stefanick Show, Ripperger appears authoritative, reasonable, and self-assured. It is the demeanor of a tenured prof holding forth in the faculty lounge. “Demons understand human psychology the same way St. Thomas does,” the prof intones. That ought to have been a howler. But no. Chris Stefanick is dazzled at Ripperger’s facile equivalence between Thomistic theology and “cutting edge psychology”—neither of which he demonstrates any acquaintance with. Continue Reading
A Florida Initiative, Abortion & The Lesson of Venezuela

The specter of Venezuela looms over a complacent American electorate. Mary Jo Anderson, a notable Catholic journalist and public speaker, gave a talk to an organization of Republican women in central Florida’s Volusia County on August 8. Her topic was Florida’s Amendment 4, a.k.a. Right to Abortion Initiative, a hot-button issue for discussion that preceded the group’s business meeting. The agenda included an introduction to Faustina Guzman-Trump [no relation to Donald], a Venezuela-born candidate for the office of Republican Committeewoman in the county. Continue Reading