In Ireland, the priest was once as vital to a village as the pub or the post office. He baptized the babies, buried the dead, and kept the farmers from killing each other.

If the neighbors were at war over a hedge, he’d settle it before Mass and still have time for a fry-up. The priest wasn’t just a man of God but also a referee of rural life — part Joe Rogan in a cassock, part St. Patrick with a whistle. The church bell was the town clock. The confessional was the psychiatrist’s couch. And the parish hall was the beating heart of the community.

You can now 'attend' Mass online, complete with comment sections and buffering hymns. It’s efficient, yes — but as spiritually satisfying as watching someone else eat your dinner.

That Ireland is disappearing. This year, the entire country produced just 13 new priests — barely enough to fill a choir, let alone a nation. The waves of eager new recruits who poured forth from the seminaries are no more, leaving weary veterans to cover half a dozen parishes, driving from one church to the next like overworked delivery drivers of the divine.

What happened? "This is an immense question, requiring a book-length answer," Irish journalist John Waters tells Align, after which he kindly attempts a summary anyway:

The explanations include: Ireland’s history of kindergarten Catholicism; the damage done by simplistic moralization; the liberal revolution; the infiltration of the Catholic clergy; the escalating implausibility of transcendent ideas (a contrived not a naturalistic phenomenon); the moral inversion unleashed by the LGBT revolution; the confusion created by the church leadership for the past 12 years and counting; et cetera.

Irish goodbye

The outlook is bleak. The number of priests in the capital is expected to fall by 70% over the next two decades. Since 2020, only two priests have been ordained in Dublin’s archdiocese.

Across Ireland, the average priest is now over 70, long past retirement age. Some say the Church’s only hope is to let priests marry. It would make more sense than flying in bewildered clerics from Africa, men who can quote Scripture but not survive small talk in a Kerry kitchen.

It’s not that people stopped believing in God (though Ireland’s Catholic population has fallen to just 69%, down from nearly 78% less than 10 years ago). They just stopped believing the Church was worth the effort.

The pews that once held families now hold the few who remember when everyone came. Ireland changed faster than the Church could follow. Confession replaced by podcasts, pop psychology, and Pornhub. It’s a lethal mix of heresy and habit — busy souls, distracted minds, and a generation convinced that salvation can be streamed, scheduled, or outsourced.

Flickering faith

At the same time, people like my mother still light candles. They still bless themselves on long drives. They still mutter prayers when the doctor calls with bad news. Faith is still there; it has just learned to keep its head down. Weddings and funerals still draw a crowd, if only because even the most lapsed Irishman can’t stomach the thought of being buried by a stranger in a suit. The flame is still there, but it’s more a pilot light than a blaze.

The fading of show-up-every-Sunday faith has mirrored the fading of everything that once made Ireland feel Irish. The language is vanishing, the music sanitized, the dances replaced by drill rap and dead-eyed TikTok routines.

Even the local watering hole — the unofficial annex of every parish — struggles to stay open. What’s vanishing isn’t just religion; it’s ritual, the sense that life meant something beyond the week’s wages.

Mass exodus

Technology promised connection but delivered solitude. You can now “attend” Mass online, complete with comment sections and buffering hymns. It’s efficient, yes — but as spiritually satisfying as watching someone else eat your dinner.

Once, the whole community walked to church together, children skipping ahead, neighbors chatting along the road. After Mass came tea, gossip, and maybe even a few sneaky pints. These days, the only communion most share is over brunch — order taken by a Filipino, processed by a Nigerian, cooked by a Ukrainian, and blessed by a middle manager named Ahmed.

In rural towns, churches stand like sentinels — beautiful, empty, and slightly ashamed of their own magnificence. Some have become cafés or concert halls, serving flat whites where once they served faithful whites. It’s called progress, though it feels more like repurposed reverence.

Photo by DANIEL LEAL/AFP via Getty Images

Let us spray

The same could be said across the pond. In Canterbury Cathedral — the cradle of English Christianity — artist Alex Vellis recently staged “HEAR US,” a graffiti-style art project inviting visitors to ask, with spray-can sincerity, “What would you ask God?”

The answers, splattered across medieval stone, came from “marginalized communities” — Punjabi, black and brown Britons, the neurodivergent, and the LGBTQIA+ faithful. A veritable clown car of the aggrieved, somehow granted front-row parking in the house of God. It was meant as inclusion; it landed as intrusion — like stringing jockstraps across the Vatican altar.

When critics like Elon Musk and U.S. Vice President JD Vance rightly accused the project of desecrating beauty in the name of diversity, Vellis fired back not with argument but with anatomy, accusing his detractors of “small d**k energy.”

Virile virtue

The phrase, unserious on the surface, hinted at something deeper: Both sides — the artist and the church that hosted him — seem afflicted by the same crisis of conviction. The Church, once roaring with moral certainty, now offers apologies to everyone and inspiration to no one. Its critics, meanwhile, confuse provocation for courage. Between them lies a vacuum where virtue used to be.

And this isn’t just an English problem. Across the Christian world, churches of every stripe — Catholic, Protestant, evangelical — have lost their fortitude. Too timid to offend, too eager to trend, they’ve traded conviction for comfort. "Small d**k energy" has gone liturgical.

Even in Ireland, where the Church once thundered with certainty, cowardice now calls the homily. The pulpit peddles activism instead of absolution, politics instead of prayer. No wonder so many stay home. And no wonder young men won’t answer the call. Who wants a life devoid of sex, love, and laughter?

If Catholicism is to last, it needs less talk and more testosterone. The next revival won’t come from a press release but from those who still believe life means something. If the Church in Ireland and beyond wants people back in its pews — and its pulpits — it best man up.

A 400-year-old prophecy foretold America’s loss of faith — and its revival

While history suggests that religious zeal often follows and quickly fades after events like the assassination of Charlie Kirk, prophetic visions from more than 400 years ago shine a light on our current situation and offer hope for a sustained faith revival.

Through an Ecuadorian nun, Mother Mariana de Jesus Torres, the Virgin Mary — under the title “Our Lady of Good Success” — reputedly foretold with staggering precision the ominous religious landscape of the late 20th and early 21st centuries. However, an immense loss of faith and practice — a mass apostasy — would be followed by a religious restoration.

Mother Mariana’s tale offers wisdom: God has an eternal devotion to us. He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest, and He will triumph.

Born to a Spanish noble family in 1563, Mother Mariana accompanied her religious aunt, Maria, to Quito, Ecuador, at a young age. At 15 years old, Mariana made her vows and joined the Conceptionist Order, of which she would later serve as abbess. Throughout her pious life, she had visions of our Lord, the Virgin Mary, angels, and various saints.

One evening in 1582, while praying before the Blessed Sacrament, Mother Mariana reportedly witnessed a crucified Christ bearing inscriptions related to God’s punishments for the late 20th century due to heresy, blasphemy, and impurity. During the encounter, the Blessed Mother asked the nun — who had been “judged blameless” — whether she would “sacrifice” herself for those sinners, which the nun accepted.

Mother Mariana’s mystic visions spanned decades, and they “tortured” her because of a predicted loss of innocence and modesty by children and women in the decades we are now living in. In these visions, the Virgin Mary consistently expressed her deep sorrow for the “children of these times” — because Satan “will reign” and faith would decay.

She prophesied that heresy would flourish in our times; vocations would be lacking, accompanied by rampant “sexual impropriety”; priests would scandalize the faithful; and the sacraments, particularly the Eucharist, marriage, and extreme unction, would be attacked, robbed of meaning, or forgotten. Many “frivolous souls” would be lost in the mayhem.

Despite the numerous grave warnings, the Blessed Mother also offered consolation and encouragement, telling Mother Mariana about the “merciful love of my Son” for the faithful during this period, prophesying the “happy beginning of the complete restoration.”

To spread devotion, Our Lady of Good Success instructed Mother Mariana to commission a statue, which had been “miraculously completed” by the archangels in January 1611, according to legend.

Mother Mariana died at the age of 72 on January 16, 1635. In the ensuing years, the local diocese approved and promoted the apparitions — which are now a worldwide devotion after awareness accelerated due to the accuracy of the predictions. In 1790, Father Manuel Sousa Pereira catalogued the religious nun’s life in “The Admirable Life of Madre Mariana de Jesus Torres,” and in 1986, the Archdiocese of Quito officially opened her cause for canonization.

The accuracy of the prophecies was borne out by the sexual revolution and anti-traditional posture of the 1960s, millions of children dying from abortion, and the clerical sexual abuse scandal, to name a few. From these spewed a myriad of social pathologies that have plagued not only the Catholic Church’s standing as a moral stalwart, but civilization at large. The proof has been, sadly, evident.

Vocations did collapse — as well as widespread religious practice and prayer. Marriage has declined, along with baptisms and the other sacraments. There has been a glaring lack of knowledge about the Eucharist — the source and summit of Christian life. When the basic tenets of faith are misunderstood or ignored entirely, a mass apostasy is inevitable and has taken place in the West, which has affected all Christian denominations.

Consequences beyond the Church

The decline in American religiosity raises even broader concerns for everyone. Religiously unaffiliated residents are less civically engaged than those active in their faith lives and less charitable in terms of monetary donations. As apostasy spreads, civic associations have likewise closed, providing fewer opportunities for neighbors to commune and engage in society.

It is no coincidence, then, that a bevy of social ills are emerging from the lack of social cohesion since the early 2000s, which Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam recognized in his book, “Bowling Alone.” Since then, Americans have experienced a precipitous rise in anxiety and depression, particularly among younger demographics, leading to a pervasive “happiness crisis.” It is no wonder that people are generally despondent or searching for answers.

Increasingly, we are isolated from God, our neighbors, and ourselves.

A ‘Great Awakening’

But in Christ’s parable of the prodigal son, the titular son returned to his father after hitting rock bottom. After the strife of the 20th and early 21st centuries, is a renewal — or “restoration” as Our Lady of Good Success allegedly proclaimed — a possibility? And did we collectively have to hit our lowest point to come back to our senses and God?

The seeds for a 21st-century “Great Awakening” are not entirely improbable. Within the past year, members of Gen Z have flocked to religion more than previous generations, and the rise in religious “nones” — or the unaffiliated — has slowed. U.S. politicians have urged a “spiritual reawakening” and have expressed a desire to “bring God back” into the public square. The Trump administration established the Religious Liberty Commission to reacquaint Americans with “our Nation’s superb experiment in religious freedom in order to preserve it against emerging threats.”

While challenges remain and thousands of churches are set to close, Kirk’s death could be a spark for a surge in religious practice in a nation that has, for the past few decades, jettisoned faith. After all, an overwhelming majority of Americans still believe in God, so there may be a willing audience.

For the faithful, we not only have encouraging signs of a revival, but promises in Scripture. Christ promises to the apostles, and us, that the “gates of the netherworld shall not prevail” against the church. Ultimately, heaven will win — and hell will lose. In the end, God will restore creation, wiping every tear from our eyes, and establish a new heaven and new earth.

Photo by David Ryder/Getty Images

Although the apparitions of Our Lady of Good Success have so far proven true, Mother Mariana’s tale offers wisdom: God has an eternal devotion to us. He is always working, especially when the times are bleakest, and He will triumph.

With the recent increase in religious attendance, clamor for God, and discussion of a spiritual renewal in the weeks following Kirk’s death, perhaps a potential “restoration” of sorts — even if short-lived — may be looming on the near horizon. The data and cultural shift should fill us with hope and strengthen our hearts to welcome the influx of weary and inflamed souls longing for peace, meaning, and God.

Editor’s note: This article was originally published by RealClearReligion and made available via RealClearWire.

Remember the Battle of Lepanto

On September 16, 1571, the 212 ships of the Holy League set out from Messina, Sicily. The ships carried 40,000 sailors, 35,000 soldiers, and the hopes of Christian Europe. Led by Don John of Austria, they headed for the Gulf of Patras in Southern Greece.

Their target? The 278 war galleys and 67,000 men composing the war fleet of the Ottoman Empire under the command of Muezzinzade Ali Pasha. On October 7, the two armadas met in the largest naval engagement since the Battle of Salamis in 480 B.C. The result changed the course of history.

The wind was against the Christians, leaving them scrambling to form a line of battle before the Ottoman galleys closed in.

The Battle of Lepanto stands as a decisive point in a thousand-year conflict between Christian Europe and the Islamic empires of the east.

Rise of the Ottoman Empire

Islam began its expansion in 622. Only a hundred years later, it had conquered all of the Middle East and North Africa. The Christian cities of Jerusalem, Antioch, Alexandria, Hippo, Tunis, and Carthage had fallen, as well as all of Spain.

The Crusades managed to slow and even push back some Islamic advances but were ultimately a failure. By 1291, the last Christian stronghold in the Holy Land had fallen. The next 200 years saw the rise of the Ottoman Empire and the continued advance of Islam, culminating in the fall of Constantinople in 1453 and the capture of the Balkans by 1475. The only bright spot was the Spanish Reconquista, returning the country to Christianity by 1492.

The 16th century started with more Christian defeats. Rhodes fell in 1522, and the Christian forces suffered a crushing defeat at the Battle of Preveza in 1538, ceding control of the Eastern Mediterranean to the Ottomans.

Famagusta falls

In 1565, something changed. Against all odds, the Knights Hospitaller held out during the Siege of Malta and handed the Ottomans their first real defeat in the Mediterranean. Then came the fateful year: 1571.

It did not start out well. Early in the year, Ottoman ships raided the Adriatic coast, venturing closer to Italy. In August, the fortress of Famagusta — the last Venetian stronghold on the island of Cypress — fell after a 10-month siege. After initially promising safe passage, the Ottomans slaughtered the remaining Venetian soldiers and subjected their leader, Marcantonio Bragadin, to brutal public torture and execution.

White Bastion, old town walls, Famagusta, North Cyprus. Heritage Images/Getty Images

The Holy League

Meanwhile, Pope Pius V had called together the Holy League — an alliance of Christian forces, including the Spanish Empire, the Republic of Venice, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Papal States. Led by Don John of Austria, the League assembled its armada at Messina. The night before they set out, Don John ordered the celebration of holy Mass and the hearing of confessions throughout the fleet. Pius V granted a plenary indulgence to all who took part in the campaign and gave a consecrated papal standard to Don John, who flew it from his flagship, the Real.

Pictures from History/Getty Images

The soldiers and sailors of the Holy League had no doubts about the nature of their mission. Every ship in the fleet had a crucifix prominently displayed aboard, as well as images of the Virgin Mary and other religious items.

Legend has it that a copy of the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe, a gift from the Archbishop of Mexico, was carried aboard a Spanish galley. Bolstered by faith and incensed by the news of the Ottoman brutality at Cypress, the Holy League set out from Messina and reached the Gulf of Patras on October 6.

Preparing for battle

The next day, the two armadas slowly moved toward one another, creeping across the waters of the narrow strait between the Gulfs of Patras and Corinth. Hundreds upon hundreds of ships were arrayed in lines, stretching for miles, as the two fleets closed in. Banners fluttered as the rowers moved the galleys forward. Prayers were uttered as the thousands of soldiers, gunners, and sailors prepared for battle. The wind was against the Christians, leaving them scrambling to form a line of battle before the Ottoman galleys closed in.

Illustration depicting a type of Venetian galley used in the Battle of Lepanto. Photo: 12/Getty Images

Meanwhile, back in Rome, Pius V prayed without ceasing. He had called upon all of Europe to join him in praying the rosary, imploring the Blessed Mother to aid the Christian forces in battle. On October 7, he led a procession through the streets of Rome, praying the rosary with the people of the city.

At Lepanto, the two fleets drew closer and the wind shifted in favor of the Christians, allowing them to take their positions before reaching the enemy. As the two fleets clashed, the Christian strategy paid off immediately. The Venetians, experienced sailors filled with rage at the treatment of their compatriots at Famagusta, shattered the Ottoman line and threw the fleet into disarray. In the center, the six galleasses — newer, large ships with heavy armaments — dealt crushing damage to the more vulnerable Ottoman galleys, breaking up their formations and allowing the Christian galleys to ram and board them.

Our Lady of Victory

In four hours, it was all over. The fury of the Venetian attack decimated the left wing, and the center collapsed under the relentless fire from the galleasses and the ferocity of the soldiers disgorged from the Christian galleys. The climax of the battle came when the Ottoman flagship Sultana rammed the Real and fierce hand-to-hand fighting broke out. The Real was in danger of falling when the papal commander, Marcantonio Colonna, brought his galley alongside and mounted a counterattack. Ali Pasha was killed, and the papal standard was hoisted over the captured Sultana.

New of the victory reached Pius V as he was praying the rosary in the Church of San Sabina, according to his biographer. He is said to have wept with joy and pronounced, "There was a man sent from God whose name was John" in reference to John 1:6. The pope ordered immediate celebrations, Masses in thanksgiving, the ringing of bells across the city, and the singing of the Te Deum.

Crediting the intercession of the Virgin Mary for the victory, Pius V established October 7 as the Feast of Our Lady of Victory. Today, it is celebrated as the Feast of the Most Holy Rosary.

The defeat was crushing for the Ottomans: 187 ships destroyed or captured, over 20,000 men dead. Although they rebuilt their fleet, they never managed to pose another serious threat to the Western Mediterranean.

Painting depicting the victory of John III Sobieski (1629-1696), king of Poland, against the Turks at the Battle of Vienna. Universal History Archive/Getty Images

The struggle between Christian Europe and the Ottoman Empire was far from over. It would be another 112 years before the land-battle equivalent of Lepanto — the Battle of Vienna — would signal the end of Ottoman expansion. Lepanto, however, served as a critical turning point, showing that Europe, when united under its Christian faith, could drive back a seemingly invincible foe.

Zeal for Christ

The lessons of the Battle of Lepanto are simple yet profound: Remember our heroes, honor their accomplishments, and never forget the source of their strength and zeal.

The heroes of Christendom were bold men who achieved the impossible against overwhelming odds. From Charles Martel’s ragged band turning back the Islamic conquest of Spain and beginning the 781-year Reconquista to King John Sobieski III’s thunderous cavalry charge that broke the siege of Vienna, these were leaders of courage and conviction.

Yet more important than the men themselves was the source of their victories: their Christian faith. Constantine’s soldiers bore the cross of Christ on their shields; centuries later, the sailors at Lepanto displayed the same cross on their ships. It was that faith that gave them strength to fight and to win — and it is that same faith that can give us strength to face and triumph over our own battles today, great or small.

The Shroud of Turin: One hidden detail that will baffle skeptics — and inspire Christians

What if the greatest mystery of Christianity carried a hidden detail — one so small that it escaped notice for centuries?

The Shroud of Turin — a 14-foot linen cloth many believe to bear the image of Jesus — has been scrutinized by scientists, historians, and skeptics alike. Yet within its faint imprint lies something almost invisible: the outline of human teeth, just behind the lower lip.

Most analyses and descriptions of the Shroud of Turin's facial image, including scientific studies and expert forensic examinations, describe the lips as closed.

To most, it might seem trivial. To a surgeon trained in facial anatomy, it changes everything. This detail not only deepens the enigma of the Shroud but also raises profound questions about life, death, and resurrection.

Providential encounter

When I first encountered the Shroud 25 years ago, I was at one of the lowest points in my life. Though I had built a long career as a surgeon, teacher, and researcher, something was missing. Then, by what I can only call providence, I found myself in Turin, Italy, during a rare public exhibition of the Shroud.

Seated just 30 feet away, I was startled by what I saw. The cloth bore the image of a crucified man, marked with bloodstains on the scalp, hands, feet, and side. My curiosity was piqued, and my journey into Shroud research began.

Years later, I returned to the Shroud through high-definition black-and-white negatives taken during the 1978 Shroud of Turin Research Project. With the eyes of a surgeon trained in facial anatomy, I saw details that stunned me: a swollen cheek, a fractured nose, and blood trickling from thorn wounds.

Then I noticed something even more remarkable — the faint outline of lower front teeth, visible where closed lips should have concealed them. Most analyses and descriptions of the Shroud of Turin's facial image, including scientific studies and expert forensic examinations, describe the lips as closed.

The teeth of the matter

This observation became the foundation of a paper I recently published, arguing that the Shroud contains an incisal plane — the biting edge of the lower teeth. While earlier researchers claimed to see both upper and lower teeth, I found only the lower visible, likely because the upper were obscured by the mustache and lip. To a trained surgeon’s eye, the evidence is clear.

Joe Marino, one of the world’s most respected Shroud scholars and editor of Shroud.com, commented on my work: “The fact that this dental surgeon believes at least some of the teeth are present is a significant development that could help determine the image-formation process.”

Why does this matter?

An inexplicable image

Because the Shroud continues to defy explanation. In 1978, STURP — a team of physicists, chemists, and imaging specialists — studied the cloth for five days. Their conclusion: The image depicts a real scourged, crucified man, not painted or forged. There is no evidence of pigment, dye, or photograph. Yet no one has been able to explain how the image was made — or to reproduce it.

Some scientists have speculated that a burst of radiant energy, perhaps ultraviolet light or X-radiation, emanated from the body at the moment of the resurrection, leaving behind an imprint not only of external features but even of internal ones, like teeth. If that is true, then what we are seeing on the Shroud is more than an archaeological artifact — it is a witness to the most transformative event in human history.

The implications are staggering. For believers, the Shroud may be the closest thing we have to photographic evidence of the resurrection — the foundational event of Christianity. For skeptics, it remains an enigma, a puzzle that modern science cannot fully explain. Either way, it demands attention.

The presence of teeth in the Shroud image adds weight to the theory that the image was not formed by human hands, but by a supernatural process. It suggests that what happened on that linen two thousand years ago was beyond the reach of ordinary physics or chemistry.

Image source: Public domain via Wikipedia Commons

Deeper questions

And that raises deeper questions: What does this cloth mean for us today? What does it tell us about life, death, and eternity?

In an age when science is often treated as the final word, the Shroud remains a paradox: a scientific mystery that points beyond science itself. Even popular culture has taken notice — actor Mel Gibson recently told Joe Rogan he believes the Shroud is authentic. Respected Christian thinkers like Jeremiah J. Johnston are reintroducing its significance to new audiences.

The Shroud is not simply an artifact locked in a cathedral in Turin. It is a challenge to each of us. It forces us to consider the possibility that God entered history, suffered, died, and rose again. It invites us to hope — that light is stronger than darkness, that life conquers death, and that our own lives can find meaning in the One who left His imprint on that cloth.

The faint image of teeth may seem like a small detail. But sometimes it is the smallest details that carry the greatest weight. If even teeth are visible on the Shroud, then perhaps so too is the evidence of resurrection — and with it, the promise of eternal life.

A New Film Pays Fitting Tribute To The Christian Martyr Of Auschwitz

Like any truly beautiful story, Triumph of the Heart breaks you out of this world, leaving an indelible impression with its message of sacrificial love.

What college students can learn from loneliness

As major universities continue to embrace a corporate bureaucratic model, the idea of a “liberal arts education” has been hollowed out.

Not only have standards of academic excellence slumped, increasingly favoring mediocrity, but coursework has become results-oriented, focusing more on conferring marketable credentials rather than on fostering deep learning.

The way I lived my friendships was permeated by a drive to consume. I treated my friends like tools I could use to stave off boredom and loneliness.

Instead of encouraging open inquiry, teachers present material within narrow ideological agendas that more often than not flatter their charges’ pre-existing assumptions. All of this in the name of keeping “customers” satisfied.

Restless hearts

Countless screeds have been written from voices on both the left and right, from both religious and secular perspectives, bemoaning how inadequately such an education prepares students to participate in civic life.

While this is true, in my time attending and working within universities, I’ve come to observe the more immediate consequences of treating students as interchangeable consumers. Depression, anomie, and loneliness have metastasized in schools that fail to offer space in their curricula for the fundamental, existential questions about truth, virtue, and love.

And yet, I continue to find examples of hope — starting with my own experience as an undergraduate student. Thus why I try to make it a point when working with undergrads — especially those making the transition from high school to college — to directly face questions about loneliness, sadness, and meaning, at times even risking sharing my own discoveries.

Department of dopamine

I remember asking myself as a student why I often felt so lonely, even when surrounded by groups of people, whether physically or digitally. I found that even when hanging out with people who care about me, when we’re having a good time enjoying each other’s company, that loneliness crept in. Even when I received those little dopamine-inducing digital indications of approval and affirmation called likes on social media, I still felt the need for more.

I attempted desperately to acquire more and more friends with whom I could fill my time. I was keenly aware of my need to be liked, to know I mattered, and to know that what I did had meaning. Finding myself bored with classwork and scrolling through Facebook aimlessly, I waited for someone to text me so that I could find something more stimulating to do. Every time I thought I heard my phone buzz, my heart leaped.

Higher education

I spent much of my freshman year pursuing such highs, hoping each one would be more intense than the last. We watched movies together, went to concerts and nightclubs, and tried all different kinds of cuisines.

And yet, even in the midst of my enjoyment, I’d feel dread creeping in: the knowledge that this moment, like all the others, would soon come to an end. My mood would crash as I remembered the abyss of “life as usual”: boring homework, tedious chores, and worse — the loneliness that always seemed to accompany being alone.

The way I lived my friendships was permeated by a drive to consume. I treated my friends like tools I could use to stave off boredom and loneliness. I was constantly anxious that they didn’t like me enough or that they would want to spend time with someone more exciting and interesting than me. I tried to find ways to convince them, even going so far as to guilt them into spending more time with me.

Looking inward

This anxiety pervaded everything I did, until I met a friend who didn’t seem interested in constantly chasing after new and exciting experiences. Instead, he wanted to talk about life. I was used to conversation as distraction, but he wanted to discuss just the subjects I used conversation to avoid.

He opened up to me about his experience of loneliness, boredom, powerlessness. He shared with me his desire to find meaning in his schoolwork. He wasn’t afraid to be vulnerable, to talk about his neediness, and he was audacious enough to ask me if I ever felt the same way.

What kind of person is this? I thought. He seemed to have no interest in using me to fill his time. Rather, he seemed interested in me — in understanding my life and in walking with me toward the answers to the questions that plagued us most. I had never met someone who wasn’t afraid of being alone, of feeling all those dark feelings I hid from.

When I was with him, I felt free to be myself, to talk about whatever was happening in my life. I didn’t feel like I needed to put on a show and market myself; I didn’t have to make myself “interesting enough” for him to want to get to know me.

Why is he like this? I needed to know.

‘The Long Loneliness’

He invited me to meet his other friends, who I soon realized were just like him. When they got together, they weren’t seeking to escape reality. They weren’t obsessed with going out, getting wasted or high, or filling themselves with entertainment ad infinitum (which is not to say they never did those things). Instead, they were more interested in facing life together, talking about their experiences, asking the questions that were heaviest on their hearts, and seeking the truth in all aspects of their lives.

When I came across Dorothy Day’s book “The Long Loneliness” several months later, I realized that this was the type of community she was talking about. I found that loneliness is not something we can use other people to eliminate, but instead something that we need to share with each other. Loneliness — which is tangled up with our infinite longing for fulfillment, as well as with the variety of human weaknesses and flaws we inevitably grapple with — will never completely disappear.

“We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community,” Day wrote.

Heading for the hurt

We need other people not to “fix” our loneliness, but to help us find the courage to delve deeper into that loneliness and to embrace it. Above all, we need other people to walk with us on the journey toward the ultimate source of truth and love for which this loneliness calls out.

I naively attempted to smother the voice of my heart when I was younger, hoping that my friends would be enough for me. I found that a true friend is able to acknowledge that she is not and never will be enough. It’s this kind of friend who is able to embrace the truth of my need, and it’s in this embrace, this unity, that I begin to experience my loneliness not as a curse but as a gift that propels me ever closer to the higher love I crave.

Buddy Mays/Getty Images

A deeper orientation

Universities may no longer consider it their duty to guide students in their pursuit of transcendent meaning, but the hunger for such meaning remains. And if the rapidly rising suicide rates among the college-aged and younger are any indication, well-meaning but overly sentimental therapeutic approaches to “happiness” are woefully inadequate substitutes.

Despite this bleak state of affairs, we should remember that it only takes one classmate, professor, or administrator to broach the subject, to help students understand that the loneliness they feel is the loneliness that always has driven humanity’s attempts to understand itself and its place in the world.

This fall, like every fall, colleges across the country will have welcomed incoming students with what is generally called “orientation” — practical advice on navigating the academic, social, and logistical challenges of the task before them. Let’s hope that somewhere in that rush of new experiences these young men and women are also afforded the time and the opportunity to orient their souls.

'Triumph of the Heart': An unflinching depiction of what it means to follow Christ

The current landscape of Christian cinema is more desert than garden. Too many films settle for pandering and saccharine depictions of the faith, as if doing the bare minimum to attract what they assume is a captive audience. Meanwhile, moviegoers thirst for stories that challenge them with reality of the Christian life.

With the success of "Sound of Freedom," "The Shift," and "Cabrini," Angel Studios has shown that viewers will show up for more nuanced, high-quality fare, but most "faith-based" films still seem content to take as little risk as possible.

As Kolbe, Marcin Kwaśny embodies an ordinary man who makes the extraordinary decision to pick up his cross and follow Christ, whatever the consequences.

This was all in my mind as I attended the premiere of "Triumph of the Heart." I wasn't sure what to expect; word of mouth has been strong, but would it live up to the hype? I'm happy to answer that question with a resounding yes.

Greater love hath no man ...

"Triumph of the Heart" tells the incredible true story of the Polish Catholic priest and newspaper publisher who would become Saint Maximilian Kolbe (Pope John Paul II canonized him in 1982). Arrested and sent to Auschwitz in 1941, Kolbe volunteers to take the place of a prisoner condemned along with nine others to die in the camp's starvation cell.

As the men cope with despair, starvation, and ideological division, Kolbe's humanity and their shared Polish identity forge a brotherhood that allows them to face down evil and die with honor.

A humble saint

Not since Paul Roland’s "Exemplum" have I seen such a truthful and realistic depiction of Catholicism. These characters are far from perfect, and that includes Kolbe himself. He smokes, he has regrets, he makes mistakes. But he’s also relentlessly hopeful, courageous, and brave in his faith in Jesus Christ, which empowers him to be a source of light for his fellow cellmates who struggle to maintain their dignity.

This is no sanitized depiction of sainthood. As Kolbe, Marcin Kwaśny embodies an ordinary man who makes the extraordinary decision to pick up his cross and follow Christ, whatever the consequences.

Sherwood Fellows

The weight of despair

The actors playing the other prisoners are equally astounding, making you feel the weight of their despair and claustrophobia in the confinement of the hellish, one-window bunker.

Especially impressive is Rowan Polonski’s Albert, who gets the film’s central arc. As he mourns the life with his wife that he passed up to fight in the war, he struggles to accept the inevitability of death and resist the temptation of suicide. It's a dark but layered portrayal of suffering that took me aback like nothing I've ever seen in a Christian film.

Keystone-France/Getty Images

As camp commandant Karl Fritzsch, the man who condemns the prisoners to death, Christopher Sherwood makes a chilling antagonist. But the more deadly foe is Satan himself. He never shows up, except for some artistic shots of a snake peppered throughout the third act, but his presence is tangible as the heroes grapple with despair. All of which makes Kolbe's admonition to “finish the race” (as seen in the movie's trailer) ring with such emotional power as they reject Satan and embrace the hard way out.

Trusting in God

Writer/director Anthony D'Ambrosio has created a deeply Catholic film. That D'Ambrosio himself struggled with anxiety and insomnia while bringing this story to life comes as no surprise; this is a movie that exudes the painful uncertainty that comes with trusting in God's plan.

"Triumph of the Heart" is also a triumph for Christian/Catholic cinema, a profoundly moving examination of the suffering that often accompanies the pursuit of holiness. I can only hope its example inspires other filmmakers to bring the full richness of the Christian faith to the big screen; the possibilities are endless. For now, go see "Triumph of the Heart." The hype is real.

Frank Caprio: A judge who tempered justice with mercy

In "The Merchant of Venice," Shakespeare stages a courtroom scene where justice and mercy collide. Antonio, unable to repay his debt, faces Shylock’s demand for a pound of flesh. Into this standoff steps Portia, disguised as a lawyer, who reminds Shylock that “the quality of mercy is not strain’d.”

Mercy, she argues, “blesseth him that gives and him that takes” — elevating both the giver and the recipient. Strict justice, without compassion, destroys. True justice, tempered with mercy, redeems.

Judge Caprio’s courtroom became a global stage not because the cases were extraordinary, but because his responses were.

Judge Frank Caprio, who died Wednesday at 88, understood this better than most. His courtroom in Providence, Rhode Island, became a stage for the same lesson Portia taught: that the law is meant not just to enforce rules, but to serve people. Again and again, he showed that the most just outcome is sometimes also the most merciful.

'Your case is dismissed'

One of Caprio's most memorable rulings came when a 96-year-old man stood before him for speeding. The man explained that he was rushing his handicapped son to a medical appointment. Rather than levy a fine, Caprio praised him as a devoted father and dismissed the case — an act of justice that, in Portia’s words, blessed both the man who received mercy and the judge who gave it.

In another instance, Caprio invited a 6-year-old girl to decide her mother’s penalty for an unpaid parking ticket. When the child shyly reduced the fine, Caprio went farther, suggesting that her mother use the money saved to buy breakfast for her kids. What could have been just another transaction became instead a lasting lesson in generosity — a glimpse of how mercy, when freely given, transforms everyone involved.

Deep and abiding faith

Frank Caprio’s sense of justice was rooted in the story of his own life. Born in Providence in 1936, the son of an immigrant fruit peddler and milkman, Caprio grew up working odd jobs and learning the value of perseverance. He taught high school while putting himself through Suffolk Law School at night, served in the Rhode Island Army National Guard, and went on to a career in public service — first as a Providence city councilman, later as chief judge of the municipal court, a position he held for nearly four decades.

What might have been an unremarkable local post became something extraordinary once cameras entered his courtroom. "Caught in Providence," the reality series that began on local public access TV in 1988, turned Caprio into a household name when it was nationally syndicated in 2018. Millions of viewers tuned in not for high-stakes drama, but for the quiet power of his empathy. Clips of his cases spread across social media, reaching hundreds of millions worldwide. He became known, simply, as “the nicest judge in the world.”

But Caprio himself never saw this as performance. “I have a deep and abiding faith in the Catholic Church, in Jesus, in the power of prayer,” he told EWTN reporter Colm Flynn in February. That faith informed his approach to the bench.

A final lesson

In Caprio's final months, battling pancreatic cancer, he recorded a simple video asking his followers not for tributes but for prayers — a moment of humility that spoke volumes about how he carried his belief. And in a commencement address at his alma mater just weeks before his death, he explained his philosophy plainly: “Although I wore a robe like most judges, I wasn’t a traditional judge, because under my robe, I didn’t wear a badge. I wore a heart.”

Judge Caprio’s courtroom became a global stage not because the cases were extraordinary, but because his responses were. In an era when social media often rewards outrage and spectacle, his viral videos offered a glimpse of justice at its most human.

He taught us that the measure of justice is not only how faithfully we enforce the rules, but how carefully we weigh the people to whom they apply. To the single parent struggling to pay fines, to the elderly man caring for a sick child, to the student with little more than a smile to offer, Caprio extended dignity. And in doing so, he showed the world that mercy can be both deeply personal and profoundly public.

That is the legacy Judge Frank Caprio leaves behind. His rulings will live on in viral clips, yes — but, more importantly, in the quiet shift of conscience they inspired in those who watched. He reminded us that justice, at its best, is not cold or mechanical. It is humane. And it is only complete when joined with mercy.

Questions about Catholicism? There's a bot for that

AI is devouring everything, from brainpower and manpower to art and writing to therapy and intimacy. Little surprise that now it’s coming for religion — not just as a tool but as a substitute. In this brave new world of prompts and replies, faith might well become just another field for automation to ransack and repackage.

Magisterium AI is a chatbot ready to dispense Catholic answers at machine speed, trained on 27,000 Church documents. Clarity, consistency, and convenience, delivered without delay? What’s not to like?

The Church has long warned against idols. This one just happens to run on silicon.

But something essential disappears in the process. A religion sustained by ritual, mystery, and human encounter is now being reformatted into AI-generated responses. Some see it as innovation, but any truly faithful Christian should see it as reduction. You don’t deepen the soul by outsourcing it to a language model. You dilute it. You deform it.

Digital discernment

Magisterium AI is marketed as a bridge to the Church, but its architectural form avoids the sacred terrain of actual spiritual formation. It offers the comfort of instant answers, devoid of the discomfort that makes those answers matter. No long silences. No wrestling with doubt. No waiting for grace. Just neatly packaged responses dressed in ecclesial jargon. It tempts the user into embracing the illusion of understanding without the weight of discernment.

There’s a reason spiritual growth has always been slow. The methodical journey isn’t a bug; it’s the entire point. Silence teaches. So does uncertainty. So does struggling through Scripture with someone who’s carried the weight longer than you. What is efficient by the measure of this world is inadequate by those of the next. Magisterium AI points to a false path where tension dissolves into trivia and struggle gives way to search results.

This isn’t about resisting technology as a whole, but about recognizing the sharp limits of machines in matters of the soul. An algorithm can refer to documents, but it cannot know God. It cannot console, confront, or call you to conversion. It cannot listen with compassion, hold silence with you, or challenge your ego in ways that leave you undone. It can only simulate presence, and that simulation becomes dangerous when people mistake it for real guidance — or somehow an improvement on real guidance.

Church as help desk

When young Catholics grow up thinking their doubts can be resolved with a prompt, they’ll begin to treat faith like customer service: Get an answer, move on. But the Church is a body, not a help desk. It breathes through embodied tradition, contradiction, dialogue, and grace. Reduce all that to a robotic response, and the foundation crumbles.

Kevin Frayer/Getty Images

Something sacred vanishes when a priest is replaced with a query. Not because clergy are flawless (far from it), but because they’re flesh and blood. They carry the tradition in tone, gesture, imperfection. Witness, not lines of code, forms their counsel. They may not offer certainty, but they teach how to live with its absence.

Clarity without cost

Magisterium AI doesn’t stutter, pause, or search for words. And that’s precisely the danger. Clarity without cost breeds complacency. In this simulated world, you didn’t earn that insight. You didn’t knock, seek, or beg. You tapped, you clicked, and the program delivered. Catholicism — and Christ — has always asked for more. Church truths aren’t just concepts to recite but realities to absorb. They call for surrender of will, reshaping of heart, and direct contact with mystery.

What’s most troubling is how effortlessly tools like Magisterium AI begin to reshape our image of God, even with the very best of intentions, not through argument or doctrine, but through tone, rhythm, and imitation. Language models can mimic reverence and copy cadence. They might stitch together fragments of theology with stunning fluency. But they don’t believe, and they don’t kneel. They do not tremble before the mystery they claim to speak for.

And yet when they answer in the Church’s voice, people thirsty for spiritual life listen. They begin to confuse fluency with faith, output with orthodoxy. Doctrine so easily becomes branding and God a user-friendly construct: predictable, polite, press-ready.

Ghost in the confessional

The devastating result is a “version” of the divine that’s algorithmically accurate but spiritually vacant and without embodiment at the same time. The worst of both worlds, it’s a sanitized, systematized substitute, unable to inspire holy fear and awe. Instead, its strings of answers sound holy enough to pass but are dead enough to forget. What emerges is not the God of Scripture, who thunders from clouds and weeps in gardens, but a corporate construct, one through whom users understand that the only fearsome and awesome thing around is the machine itself.

Nor does Magisterium AI simply digitize theology. It rearranges discipleship too, shifting the aim from becoming holy to staying informed. It trades the long labor of sanctification for a dopamine stream of quick solutions.

The Church has long warned against idols. This one just happens to glow, have hallucinations, and run on silicon.

Chatbot communion

Spiritual risks this severe bleed swiftly into the culture at large. When the faithful stop sitting with Scripture, stop listening to sermons, and stop debating in basements and parish halls, instead isolating themselves and outsourcing their formation to AI, they lose the muscle memory of communion. The Church kneels before a platform. The body of Christ becomes just another content feed.

No, don’t panic. But do be warned: Magisterium AI may begin as a tool of convenience. But convenience rewires. It strips us of spiritual stamina. It dulls the rituals that once shaped the soul. And slowly, it replaces the relationships that once carried the gravity of grace.

The Church isn’t built on convenience. It’s built on sacred encounters between sinner and priest, reader and revelation, and suffering and meaning. Remove those, and you don’t just soften faith; you shatter it. Faith doesn’t need to be digitized. It needs to be lived, in pews and parish halls — in chapels and candlelit corners where no code can follow and no circuit can reach.