Guest blogger Mantilla Amontillado is the founder of Veritas Vestments. She holds a degree in Ecclesiastical Haberdashery from Salamanca University. She has done the pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostella three times on horseback and is engaged to the famous matador, Senor Augusto Torquemada. What you say Hon? What do I think of Pope Francis never wearing [...]
The old debate still rages in which Catholics dispute with Protestants who say that salvation is by "faith alone." Yes, we like to pick out the verse from the epistle of James which says that "faith without works is dead." If we're going to talk the talk we have to walk the walk. Action speak louder [...]
Now at the end of re-reading The Lord of the Rings, it occurs to me that I should have blogged my way through. There were so many details seen now and seen in more clarity where Tolkien's Catholic imagination shines through. I'm going to back again to glean from the chapter in The Return of the King on [...]
The Anchoresses fumes over the latest "ordination" of a Catholic woman here. I cannot disagree. One of the things most offensive to anyone with a Catholic sensibility is the women priests' taste in vestments. These are not happy events. Ecclesiatical fashionista--Mantilla the Hon had a fair bit to say about it here. One of the things [...]
...or how the sweet, but noxious atmosphere of universalism has undermined the Catholic Church's mission to the world. Ralph Martin is the Director of Graduate Theology Programs in the New Evangelization at Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit. He is also President of Renewal Ministries and a consulter to the Pontifical Council for the New Evangelization. In [...]
Someone has joked, "In Central America it's not really a valid Mass unless there is a dog present." I was therefore amused to see that at one of the Pope's liturgies in Brazil a stray dog wandered onto the stage. For five years I took some American high school kids to El Salvador on a mission trip. [...]
...or call me Catholic. One of my life slogans is the dictum by F.D.Maurce that "A man is most often right in what he affirms and wrong in what he denies." I realize that my own prejudices and background incline me towards what seems to be a more conservative viewpoint, but I reject the title and [...]
Back in April I began a series on What’s Killing American Catholicism. The first post was on Cultural Catholicism and I argued that this was countered by Comprehensive Catholicism–a Catholic faith that is truly universal and transcends all cultures and ethnicities. The second installment was on Complacent Catholicism which is countered by Compassionate Catholicism. The third post focused on Cafeteria Catholicismversus [...]
There seems to be an undefined group of Catholics who some call "Peace and Justice Catholics". They are typified as aging hippies. They named their churches "Prince of Peace" in the sixties as a kind of flower power protest. These peace and justice Catholics are portrayed by conservatives as left wing, tree hugging, bra burning, gay [...]
I hear all the fuss, alarm and outrage about same sex marriage, but the more I think about it, the more complicated it becomes, because the issue of same sex marriage did not simply materialize out of thin air. Marriage has been disintegrating in our society for the last forty years, and practically everyone is to [...]