Is now posted at the Why I'm Catholic website. Go here. You can also read other versions of my conversion story at the Archived Articles section of this blog here, and you can download audio versions of My Journey to the Catholic Church and the story of how I ended up as a Catholic priest at [...]
It is often said that the longest journey is from the head to the heart. In other words, we can sometimes understand something intellectually, but until it gets into the heart--the seat of emotion and the seat of our will--it will only ever be a good idea. This is what happened to me with the dogma [...]
I had been on the path to becoming a Catholic for nearly twenty years. Coming from an Evangelical, Protestant background I had become an Anglican priest, learned to pray the rosary, understood and accepted the Catholic understanding of the Church, the sacraments and the priesthood. I spent a lot of time in Catholic Benedictine monasteries and [...]
In the combox a reader asks, Father, regarding your reference to the “personal relationship with Jesus” that evangelicals emphasize … what is that? I hear that a lot in Catholic circles now also … but I have never seen it explained. How does one recognize that experience or how does it feel? The evangelicals seem to [...]
Today we celebrate St Athanasius, and can somebody beam him down? The place is crawling with Arians again. The simple version is that Arius--a Bishop of Alexandria--taught that Jesus Christ was not fully divine. Nearly the whole church followed this new teaching. It made sense, after all for lots of reasons it was a bit of [...]
Is there a contradiction in the gospels? In John 6 Jesus is asked the question, "What must we do to accomplish the works of God?" Jesus answers, "Believe on the one whom he sent." But in Matthew's gospel in the parable of the sheep and goats, Jesus says we will be judged according to our works--"Inasmuch [...]
I've enjoyed welcoming a good number of new readers to the blog since coming over to Patheos. The comment box has been filled with lively discussion, and I always enjoy attracting some of the err, more eccentric readers who are out there. Here's a comment in response to a picture post I had of Pope Benedict. [...]
Does truth of the Catholic faith matter, and what is more important, what you do or what you believe? This debate has come up in the comboxes on this blog in two different ways: The first is with a reader who is a Catholic but asserts that what is most important are the good works people [...]
From the combox I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not because of archaeology, or history, or linguistics, or any other secular discipline. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ for the exact same reason that you are a member (and leader) of the Roman Catholic Church: because it [...]
An excerpt from my book Adventures in Orthodoxy. Some years ago there was an Anglican bishop who was asked his opinion about the Christian belief that Jesus Christ rose from the dead on the third day. The bishop said he believed in the resurrection, but not in any crude physical way. “The resurrection”, he stated, “was [...]