The Moynihan Letters

    The Honorable Victoria Nuland, 60, U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs (link), while giving testimony to the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Monday, March 8, three days ago (here is a report on her testimony). Nuland confirmed the existence of a number of U.S.-supported bio-labs in Ukraine for the past decade or [...]

    "All can be lost with war. Let men return to understanding. Let them resume negotiating." —The words of Pope Pius XII to the nations of Europe just before the beginning of the Second World War, on August 24, 1939, cited by Archbishop Viganò at the opening of his Declaration on the Russia-Ukraine Crisis (text below), [...]

A woman crosses the street as anti-tank constructions are seen in Kyiv, Ukraine, March 7, 2022. (CNS photo/Gleb Garanich, Reuters)     Letter #44, 2022, Monday, March 7: Ukraine     Over the weekend, I was able to work in my little garden, cutting back some rose bushes in preparation for spring.     As I clipped the stiff, [...]

    “Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up. So then, while we have the opportunity (kairós), let us do good to all.” —St. Paul, Letter to the Galations, 6:9-10. Pope Francis cites this passage at the outset of his message for [...]

    “True sacrifice is that with which we unite ourselves with gratitude to the Sacrifice of Our Lord, giving a spiritual sense and a supernatural end to the pain that we nevertheless deserve.” —Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, 81, in a reflection for Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. Below, the complete text     "Down the centuries humanity [...]

A woman and her son look out from an evacuation train at Kyiv central train station in Ukraine Feb. 25, 2022, after Russia launched a massive military operation against Ukraine. The Permanent Council of the Polish bishops' conference met Feb. 25 and urged Poles to "open for our sisters and brothers from Ukraine homes, hostels, [...]

    Alexander Solzhenitsyn in Zurich, Switzerland in 1974. He died in 2008. He was one of Russia's greatest writers (link)     “It pains me to write this as Ukraine and Russia are merged in my blood, in my heart, and in my thoughts. But extensive experience of friendly contacts with Ukrainians in the camps has shown me [...]

    Letter #39, 2022, Tuesday, February 22: Liturgy     There have been various rumors, in and away from Rome, that Pope Francis intends to issue further restrictive decrees against the use of the old rite of the Mass in the near future, possibly just before, or on, Ash Wednesday, next week.     But in actual fact, Francis recently [...]

    "The Church must breathe with her two lungs! In the first millennium of the history of Christianity, this expression refers primarily to the relationship between Byzantium and Rome. From the time of the Baptism of Rus' it comes to have an even wider application: evangelization spread to a much vaster area, so that it now [...]