Am I getting older or is the news getting worse? All around the world seems to be disintegrating. What was considered immorality by everyone is now championed as good and progressive. The Christian church in America -- Catholics included--seem to be swept along by the crass materialism, commercial mentality and all the complacency and desires of [...]
One of the jokes when I was a member of the Church of England was that "C of E" stood for: "Church of Everybody". It was an ambiguous joke--on the one hand poking the C of E for being such a rubbery kind of institution that it stood for nothing and therefore fell for anything. On [...]
When I was at Bob Jones University I can remember a demure undergraduate who was a bit of a bluestocking saying to me, "I really like nuns and would love to be a nun if only they were Christian." What she meant was that she wished there were Protestant nuns. She can be forgiven for she [...]
Yesterday at Mass for Corpus Christi I spoke about the real presence of the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist. It reminded me that many Catholics use an abbreviated form of this theological mouthful and refer to "the Real Presence". The problem with this is that "the Real Presence" [...]
The Protestants in Greenville got together with the Catholics for today's Stand Up for Religious Freedom Rally. For the most part it was an example of cordial co operation. However, there was a fervent Catholic lady handing out literature laden with Bible verses that prove Catholic doctrine, and across the street some Protestants were protesting that [...]
I have a friend who is an alcoholic. He says, "I have an addictive personality.That's just the way I am." OK. But that's not really an excuse. I tried to sympathize by saying, "So you're addicted to booze. That's a bad addiction. But why are you addicted to booze? What does it do for you?" The [...]
You may remember that episode in Peter Pan when Tinkerbell is about to perish and all the children in the audience are asked to clap their hands if they believe in fairies. Their clapping makes Tinkerbell come back to life. Tinkerbell seems to have invaded the mindset of modern man. That is to say, too many [...]
A year after Rev Harold Camping's followers messed up on doomsday and the rapture didn't happen Patrick Archbold links to a sympathetic article on the followers who were "left behind" when Jesus didn't turn up in glory. They didn't experience the rapture, but they did experience a rupture--in their belief system. Matt notices that this article observes [...]
What does abortion have to do with witchcraft and black magic? Everything. Today human fetuses are roasted, dried, crushed and turned into pills which supposedly boost male virility. This story isn't really new. It was reported a few years ago for the first time and the rumor confirmed by DNA tests. This form of cannibalism is [...]
There's a delicious scene in Brideshead Re-visited where the spiritually illiterate Rex Mottram is being instructed in the Catholic faith and the priest asks, "If it were raining and the Holy Father said it was sunny, how would you then explain papal infallibility?" Rex ponders for a moment and says, "I suppose I would say that [...]