In the confessional every priest deals with folks who are struggling with guilt and shame, and it has seemed to me for some time that most folks do not have the tools to deal with guilt and shame. However, the church teaches how to approach guilt and shame in a positive and objective manner. This is [...]
The recent document Fiducia Supplicans signed off by Pope Francis is probably the most disastrous piece of work in what will be seen as the worst papacy in the 20th-21st centuries. My comments here have nothing to do with the issue of same sex attraction. I have no opinion on those matters other than the teaching of [...]
Now having had a chance to read Fiducia Supplicans-- the new document from the Vatican on blessings, I have a few thoughts from the point of view of a parish priest. As usual, I advise readers to avoid jumping to conclusions by reading (and believing) headlines, social media posts and scare quotes. Here is the document [...]
Will the atheist cynics and Protestant scoffers never cease with the old canard that Catholicism is simply old paganism in a new dress? These critics notice similarities between certain Roman Catholic customs and the old Roman religion and snipe that our faith is no more than paganism with a face lift. “Christmas!” they cry, “your so-called [...]
There has been a discussion on social media about beautiful Catholic Churches. The usual ignorant comments were spouted..you know the old grumble: "Look at that huge expensive church! They should have given the money to the poor!" The obvious ripostes are: The Catholics built beautiful churches but they also always built schools, universities, libraries, hospitals, poor [...]
On this day sixty years ago John F Kennedy was assassinated and in Oxford, England C.S.Lewis died. Lewis had a great impact on my life--in many ways saving my Christian faith. I had been brought up in fundamentalist Protestantism and, after high school, went to Bob Jones University. The education I received at BJU was actually [...]
A reader has asked me to comment on the recent reply to questions from a Brazilian priest about access to baptisms. The question was whether a person who is confused about their gender can be baptized, whether children from a same sex union (presumably conceived through surrogacy) can be baptized and whether such persons (those who [...]
News is bubbling out of various Catholic bishops who are banning the ad orientem celebration of Mass and the faithful from receiving communion kneeling at altar rails. Is it possible that Catholic leaders could be any more stupid than this? Do they not understand the quirks of human nature and how we all respond to senseless rules [...]
I was a young Anglican priest and serving as an assistant curate in a parish in which Father John my boss (the pastor) was also a convert from a conservative Baptist home. We were con-celebrating Mass on the evening of All Souls Day, and our parish was blessed with a good choir and music director who [...]
Our Lady of the Rosary in Greenville, SC is located in a part of town that is challenged in many ways. The church campus is surrounded by low income housing, high density population, a large transient population and all the difficulties associated with modern American poverty: high unemployment, homelessness, human trafficking, prostitution, substance abuse and broken [...]