La Civiltà Cattolica – Tony Lusvardi, S.J.

Cupid aims his arrow! From “Venus, Mars, and Cupid,” Guercino, 1633

Late last year, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith issued Una Caro a document praising monogamy. Monogamy is indeed a praiseworthy institution and not one to be taken for granted these days when everything seems up for grabs. In my seminar on marriage last semester, a student brought to my attention the story of a Protestant pastor in Berlin blessing a “marriage” of four men. And I know from the discussions about marriage in my introduction to the sacraments class at the Gregorian University that polygamy remains a real pastoral challenge in many parts of the globe.

I was happy to be able to review Una caro in the latest issue of La Civiltà Cattolica, adding some insights from recent sociological studies on marriage by Brad Wilcox, Mark Regnerus, and the Belgian sexologist Thérèse Hargot. These sort of studies cannot substitute for a theology of marriage, but they do provide an invaluable supplement to it, if for no other reason than that they help to dispel some of the myths used to deride the Christian vision of marriage.

I’m honored to have a couple of recent works appear in print in the past few weeks, the first an article in La Civiltà Cattolica, a publication founded by Italian Jesuits in 1850, which has since gone international. The article “Gestis Verbisque: The Words and Actions of the Sacraments” (the Italian is here) analyzes a recent Vatican document dealing with sacramental theology — specifically the question of invalid baptisms. The document Gestis verbisque was available only in Italian at the time I wrote the article, but has since come out in English (and other languages) here. It’s an important document because it reminds priests and deacons of the need to faithfully celebrate the sacraments according to the Church’s tradition and liturgical books. We probably all have had unfortunate experiences of goofy things happening in liturgy because Father thought that he could improve upon a centuries-old ritual with regrettable results. Gestis verbisque reminds us that “The Church is the ‘minister’ of the Sacraments, but she does not own them.” My own article fleshes out some of the background behind the document and points out where I think it adds something theologically (its treatment of the minister’s intention). It was interesting to see some of the strange cases in history that I found while researching Baptism of Desire and Christian Salvation come up again in modern settings. You’d think we’d learn!

The other publication is the first short story I’ve published in a while–too busy with academic work–in a magazine that will be familiar to readers of these pages, Dappled Things. Dappled Things is the only literary magazine I know of dedicated exclusively to Catholic literature. I’ve been honored to have a number of short stories and essays appear in their pages over the years, some of which can be found on their site. My most recent story, “Pious Tchotchkes,” is in their Easter 2024 issue, which is only available in print. Their print issues are always beautifully crafted.

The story is set in Portugal, and here are a couple of places alluded to — baroque exuberance in Coimbra and Cabo da Roca, the westernmost point in continental Europe.