John Tuttle

Lent 2025 Gospel Reflection

This month, the Church in the US celebrates National Marriage Week (Feb. 7-14), appropriately ending on the feast of St. Valentine’s Day. While Valentine’s Day is an occasion on which the secular world throws chocolates and Cupid darts at us, its deeper meaning lies in commemorating a Catholic priest from the 3rd century.
Father Valentine married Roman soldiers and their fiancées in secret, since marria...

“What is artificial intelligence?” asked Quata reporter Ben Brubaker in one of the publication’s newsletters last year. “Depending on whom you ask, the term might refer to sci-fi entities, existing cutting-edge technology or even software we use every day.”
According to Brubaker, the term “artificial intelligence” was invented by computer scientist John McCarthy in 1955 to refer to machine behaviors that people would consider “intelligent” if these behaviors were observed in a human being.
Bu...

All throughout human history, both down through the ages and up to adulthood, people have displayed inherent needs and desires. A baby whines when she wants food, and indeed she needs the loving care and attention of Mom and Dad because there are still many things she is incapable of doing herself. A young child experiences a “need love” for her parents; she depends on them.
Much of the human experience revolves around wants and needs of varying degrees. Our health, careers, and lives are sha...

Just a few days ago, the calendar new year opened with the beautiful Solemnity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God. As always, Mary points us to her Son. The Gospel for the solemnity ends by telling us, “When eight days were completed for his circumcision, he was named Jesus, the name given him by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”
Today is the Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus! The Catholic Church reminds us to honor the Name of our Lord and directs our attention to its sign...

Book review of Jean-Jacques Antier's "Charles De Foucauld" (2022).

Every year, we celebrate the feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the magi to the Holy Family, on Jan. 6 (hence the 12 days of Christmas) – or the Sunday nearest that date. Among some communities it is customary to give gifts on this day, similar to how gifts might be given on St. Nicholas’s feast or Christmas Day.
This feast represents the time during which the Magi visited the Christ Child and bestowed their gifts on Him, a time separate from the Holy Family’s temporary stay in...

Finally, on the devotional front, I benefited greatly from reading Khaled Anatolios’s lively collection of homilies, . Of course, as a Protestant, I do not agree with everything he says, but these brief chapters both demonstrate how a rich Nicene theology connects to everyday life in the twenty-first century and how a common commitment to the Trinitarian God offers ecumenical edification for those who care to reflect upon it. Definitely a book to give to that special Nicene Trinitarian in you...

Whether it’s the original novella by Charles Dickens or one of its many screen adaptations, “A Christmas Carol” is enshrined in my mind as a holiday staple. Why shouldn’t it be? Like the songs of the season remind us, Christmas is a time for telling “scary ghost stories and tales of the glories of Christmases long, long ago.” That is what Dickens’ book is – a dramatic event filled with encounters with haunting spirits that, when all is said and done, convince Ebenezer Scrooge of the unrighteo...

Age and weather took the golden fleece from the trees; the scarlet tinsel is scattered. The arboreal vesture which had burst into flaming yellow and orange a few weeks ago now lies rusted on the lawn, piled up in the ravine. A scene of leaves, enchanted by some spell of nature, darting and dancing in the street, accompanies my daily commute. The hopeless poet views the landscape thus. It is a thing of beauty and, perhaps, of melancholy.
During the holiday season we recognize all we are gratef...

The late Christopher Tolkien, in the foreword to The Silmarillion, says of his father’s work: “In his later writing mythology and poetry sank down behind his theological and philosophical preoccupations.” Theology bubbled to the surface and became a key theme that can be gleaned from The Silmarillion and all of Tolkien’s corpus. In the actors’ commentary for Peter Jackon’s Fellowship of the Ring adaptation, Ian McKellen also refers to this “semi-religious language of Tolkien.”
J.R.R. Tolkien ...

We’ve all seen deepfakes at this point. Whether it’s the feverish re-envisioning of The Lord of the Rings as it might have been (as directed by Wes Anderson) or Joe Biden and Donald Trump’s viral cover of “Video Killed the Radio Star,” we have witnessed the entertainment value this technology has to offer. These kinds of effects, though polished for a higher level of detail, brought youthful Luke Skywalker to the screen in series like The Mandalorian and The Book of Boba Fett.
At the same tim...