Nothing in revelation requires us to believe that salvation must be easy, likely or equally accessible to all, but it cannot be categorically impossible.
Anthony R. Lusvardi, S.J.
Anthony R. Lusvardi, S.J., teaches sacramental theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome. He is the author of Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation. (Catholic University of America Press, 2024)
Posted inFaith, Faith and Reason
JD Vance, Ukraine and the nihilism of MAGA
There is a cynical strain of MAGA, a mirror of the deconstructivism of the left, which jeers at woke hypocrisy but is not for much of anything—certainly not anything requiring faith or sacrifice.
Posted inFaith and Reason, Politics & Society
Caesars, presidents and apostles: Viewing the presidential election from Rome
I am rather fond of my native land and her robust and quirky republican traditions, but Jesus did not preach democracy nor endorse any particular political philosophy.
Posted inFaith and Reason, Politics & Society
Celebrities: We don’t care who you’re voting for
It is not selfish to do what you are good at and then to show a degree of humility about other things—including politics and other fields of expertise.
Posted inPolitics & Society, Short Take
The Paris Olympics ‘Last Supper,’ the French Revolution and punching down on a Catholic minority
The display at the Olympics was not innocent fun gone too far or Europeans just being artsy. It was bullying a minority.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
We should stop filming the Liturgy of the Eucharist.
An e-Eucharist can be unsacramental and even anti-sacramental.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
What Rome’s station churches teach us about Easter
The liturgies of Lent and Easter, like the churches themselves, are built upon the conviction that the resurrection changes everything.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
Pilgrimage—like the sacraments—is all about the details
Couldn’t it be apple juice instead of wine? Isn’t it the principle that matters? It could, of course, but then we would lose everything.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
A church built on ruins
No place in the world has such a talent for rebuilding what once seemed lost as Rome.
Posted inFaith, Faith in Focus
During Lent, we need both penance and beauty
I suppose there is a line of thought in Christianity that would equate the cheap and mean with holiness, but somehow Catholicism has always found room for both Michelangelo and Mother Teresa.