They will beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks. Isaiah 2:4 Gian Sardar wrote a book about her father who grew up in Kurdistan. “I saw my father as a boy in fields of blood-red poppies,” she said in an interview. “I imagined the mud huts he lived in, the sound of the call to prayer early in the morning and...

by Mr. Craig Taffaro   The force of charity is often lost on the modern American man. In American culture, even amongst Catholics, charity gets reduced to the dollars one puts in the collection basket or gives to a favorite (or annoyingly persistent) charitable organization. Sometimes, charity breaks free of this common mold and becomes ...

The courtroom was packed. Lawyers, reporters, county commissioners and law enforcement officials crammed into the benches next to ex-offenders, recovering addicts, clergy, therapists, social workers, friends, relatives and children. The occasion was not judicial hearing, but a graduation marking a client’s successful completion of the local dr...

This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. Stephen Beaumont, who selects all movie clips used in  Fraternus, challenges us to rethink movie night. Movies have a vast influence in our culture today — mostly negative. For those of us who strive to raise our families according to traditional values, we often find tha...

This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. Editor’s note: Some might not see the wisdom in examining a father’s experience battling television decades ago, since it is a form of media largely displaced by phones and devices. What Mr. Gilbert’s account offers, however, is the courage and foresight of a father to re...

This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. An entry into Pieper’s book, by Wes Hill.   In Leisure: the Basis of Culture, the late German philosopher Josef Pieper argues for a vision of human flourishing grounded on leisure. It is leisure properly understood, according to Pieper, that will restore Christian ...

In high school, books by John Steinbeck were assigned reading: The Grapes of Wrath, Of Mice and Men, The Pearl and The Red Pony.  I loved those books. Now that I’m getting ready to retire, it’s time to read Travels with Charley: In Search of America. Steinbeck wrote that book while traveling across the country in a pickup with a camper ac...

by Craig Taffaro Pope Pius XI established the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe in 1925 with his encyclical Quas Primas. The encyclical describes the nature and extent of Christ’s Kingship and how the Church should ever uphold the ultimate rule of Our Lord in the public sphere, especially in the face o...

I was once at a conference where a priest who happened to be a hand-to-hand combat expert was going to speak on spiritual warfare. “So, this is the guy,” said a skeptical and admittedly liberal friend, “who’s going to teach us about the Prince of Peace?” Obviously, there’s some tension and reality in his quip, but it seems to me the...

This article was previously published in Sword & Spade magazine. Fr. Alan Mackey, pastor of Our Lady, Help of Christians, in Huntsville, Ala. considers the blessing of a cemetery for parish life. Our Lady, Help of Christians in Huntsville, Alabama, is fortunate to be situated across the street from a cemetery. Several parishioners are bur...