Category: Uncategorized

by Brett Manero The Los Angeles area is currently experiencing a shocking onslaught of as many as six active massive wildfires which began on Tuesday, January 7, due to an unusually high speed of the Santa Anna winds, possibly reaching as high as 100 MPH (source: The New York Post and CNN). A friend of…

by Brett Manero I intended to write this review some two weeks ago, but the busyness of the Christmas holiday got to me.  I watched the recent film, Mary, while en route from Denver to New York just before Christmas, and I’m finally getting around to a second viewing.  The following is, I hope, a…

by Kurt Hofer My home parish isn’t much to look at. It pales in comparison to the Cathedrals of Europe. That goes for both the interior and exterior. The only thing that distinguishes it from a Protestant church is that its otherwise barren altar bears a crucifix, not a cross.   I’m well aware I can…

by Brett Manero For Catholics, new years come in many ways. There is our birthdays, which can be looked at as an “individual new year” for each one of us. There is the beginning of the Church year with the start of Advent in late November or early December, which is technically the true start…

by Brett Manero President Jimmy Carter passed away on December 29, 2024, at the impressive age of 100 years old.  He served as the thirty-ninth President of the United States from 1977 until 1981, presiding over a nation that was recovering from the trauma of the Vietnam War, the Watergate scandal, and the massive social…

by Brett Manero Many years ago, someone asked me: “Why doesn’t the Church have a Feast of the Incarnation, to truly honor the fact that God became man?” I thought about it and wondered the same thing: why doesn’t the Church have a specific feast celebrating the coming of the God-Man? It took the input…

by Brett Manero Wicked has been in theaters for nearly a month, and I finally got the chance to see it on December 20, 2024.  From start to finish, it is immensely enjoyable, thought-provoking, and sheerly entertaining, even if the musical numbers become a bit too much (no offense to musicals!).  I highly recommend it…

by Justin Wahl One of the biggest divides in our country – and one which hugely defined this past presidential election – is the simple cultural divide between those who are old enough to remember a time before the internet, and those who only ever knew the world through a virtual lens.  And, naturally, there…

by Brett Manero I was not present at the official reopening of Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral on December 7, 2024, but as a Catholic, its reopening has meaning for myself and for the universal Church. After the devastating fire of 2019 that destroyed its famous roof and spire, the Cathedral has been rebuilt and once…

by Brett Manero Chapter II:  2023 The synagogue was quiet on a Friday afternoon.  The following day, the Sabbath, it would be packed.  It was your typical Jewish synagogue, with the pews, the altar, the Star of David, the Bible opened upon the altar.  It was peaceful and pleasant, and sacred, even if it wasn’t…