Today I am remembering my father's Great Aunt Anne. My whole family, on both sides, are blessed with a rich, godly Protestant faith. They were German, Swiss, Danish and English Lutherans, Brethren and Mennonites. In my grandparents generation they had left the mainline Protestant denominations to join independent Bible/Baptist churches. Despite this overwhelming Protestant heritage my [...]
Today's saint has become controversial because her identity is disputed. Luke 8:2-3 relates that she was one of a group of women who traveled with Jesus and supported his ministry. It also says Jesus cast seven demons out of her. She was present at the crucifixion and burial of the Lord and was the first witness [...]
I am going to tiptoe into a minefield here. First of all, I should say that as a married priest I feel un qualified to speak on the issue of clerical celibacy. I am humbled by the majority of my brother priests who accept the discipline of celibacy and who, for the most part, seem to [...]
Here is one of the essays from my book Reluctant Allies: Essays on Eliot and the Inklings. J.R.R.Tolkien was famously antipathetic towards Shakespeare, and there is no suggestion that the beastly Caliban inspired Middle Earth’s little monster, nevertheless, Caliban and Gollum are interesting parallel studies in evil. The figure of the beastly human reverberates through literature, from [...]
Those who know me know that I am not a traditionalist but I am a lover of tradition. I do not celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass, but I have always been sympathetic to those who are devoted to it. It cannot be denied that certain elements within the traditionalist movement have exacerbated the divisions in the [...]
St Augustine's famous line, "O God, our hearts are restless until they rest in You" is the foundation of human desire. We are so often thrown out of our peace by our desires and we fear that if we follow our desires we will get into trouble. Therefore we retreat into a dull life of unquestioning [...]
The other day on Twitter I posted a picture from St Peter's in Rome and someone commented that he had visited his local Catholic church only to find a bare brick auditorium badly in need of repair and poorly decorated. I get it. The fullness of the Catholic faith in our atheistic age is a buried [...]
I was on pilgrimage to Rome for the Jubilee Year in 2000 when I met Ian. You see, I was hard up at the time and I wanted to save money so I opted not to pay a single room supplement which meant sharing with a stranger. At the airport I was eyeing up all the [...]
When faced with controversial subjects one often hears someone spout the bromide, "Well, we must hate the sin but love the sinner." While this sounds like an easy and pleasant solution, when we press it, it proves problematic. First of all, we need to think about the final judgement. When it comes down to that grim [...]
This morning at breakfast I asked our almost 30 year old son what he thought the world would be like when he is my age. That is, what will the world be like 35 years from now? That would be the year 2056--the year I would be 100. The best he could come up with was, [...]