Marty Dybicz is a retired high school Theology teacher with a Master's Degree in Religious Education. Marty was raised by devout Catholic parents on the Near South Side of Chicago, became groovy and radical (pc before pc was cool) in high school and college, and eventually discovered that the greatest adventure is an orthodox relationship with Jesus Christ, thanks to C. S. Lewis, G. K. Chesterton, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. John Paul the Great, and Pope Emeritus Benedict.
This column is about worldview (metaphysics and epistemology) although it touches on social justice and politics as well. It is about the greatest challenge to the Catholic Faith and gets to the very root of the polarization both outside and inside the Church. The greatest challenge to the Catholic Faith is Postmodernism, which is […]
I would like to offer the following reflections and practices that have helped me better participate at Mass. My hope is that reflections might help someone else enter more deeply into the mystery and beauty of the Eucharist. This column will have served its purpose if the reader realizes by its end how barely we […]
What is the greatest addiction today? Opiates? Alcohol? Gambling? Mobile phones? Sex? Video games? Nicotine? The list of candidates could get very long. In the 1980s, I was one of a group of teachers sent by our principal for training to deal with chemical dependency. At the training program, we were not taught pharmacology. We […]
Hate has become very topical—“hate speech,” “hate crimes,” being “hateful.” Yet in the ’60s, when “Love” was widely proposed as the solution—the “Summer of Love,” “all you need is love,” “unconditional love,”—there was not much talk about “Hate” being the problem. Now, when there is so much talk about “Hate” being the problem, there is […]
When we pray in the Our Father, “Thy Kingdom come,” what are we praying for? Jesus most preached and taught not about love, but about the Kingdom of God. “After John (the Baptist) had been arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the gospel of God: ‘This is the time of fulfillment. The kingdom of God […]
Anyone and everyone should be Catholic: God wants it because it is the best way to be a fulfilled human being. But how is someone Catholic? What does it mean to be Catholic? Who is a good Catholic? If you were arrested for being Catholic, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Keep in mind that […]
If you were on a committee to interview candidates for principal of a Catholic school, what question would you ask the candidates? I was on such a committee a few years ago. One of our first jobs was to decide which questions we would ask every candidate. My suggestion was: Why be Catholic? The other […]
We were all shocked and shattered when my brother announced that he wanted to become a priest. It was not just that he wanted to become a priest, but he wanted to become a Cistercian priest. That meant that once he left home he would never return. Naturally, my mother was totally bereft. She was […]
Many in the Church have made serious assertions that we can have a reasonable hope that at the Final Judgement Hell will be empty – that the Mercy of God is so great that even those that do not repent will be saved. Some have even gone so far as to assert that in the […]
The Doctrine of the Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist
The Real Presence of Jesus in the Eucharist has been believed by Christians since the time of the Apostles. Understanding this metaphysically and describing our belief in human terms has been a development over time, but the teaching that Jesus – Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity – is present in the bread and wine after […]
Cdl. McCarrick and the Conspiracy of the Well-Meaning
If you ask me what I know of the accusations against the archbishop emeritus of Washington, D.C., Cdl. Theodore McCarrick, I must reply, very little. I know he’s accused of sexually abusing at least one minor and three adults; while accusation isn’t proof, the reports seem credible enough to take his guilt as a working […]
Some Thoughts on Freedom and Truth
Some 242 years ago Thomas Jefferson wrote the Declaration of Independence and the United States of America was born. We declared our freedom from the tyranny of King George. It’s been an interesting 242 years, to say the least. And the country – and the world – has come a long way since then. But […]
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