Who are the "snake handlers" and where do they come from? "Snake handlers" are a small group of Pentecostal Christians--started in Appalachia during the Holiness revival movements and still operating today. They get all worked up and get "the anointing" which means they enter a trance like state through hyper emotionalism then they pass around live [...]
Those who like fairy tales should love the story of the Ascension of Jesus Christ into heaven. Like Dorothy, who is swept up by a cyclone to Oz, Jesus floats up and disappears up into what must be a Technicolor heaven. Fantasy tales are full of this sort of thing. Peter Pan flies away to Neverland; [...]
I have always loved the second epistle of St Paul to the Corinthians. His vulnerability, weakness and helplessness without God pervades every chapter, and yet it is in his sorrows that he triumphs. It is in the midst of the weakness that he perseveres. In the fourth chapter he speaks of the light of Christ, and [...]
There are very few Catholic titles for the Blessed Virgin Mary more likely to get Evangelical Protestants upset than Mary Co-Redemptrix or Mary Mediatrix. Immediately the Bible Christian will quote I Timothy 2:5, "For there is one God and one mediator between God and Man--the man Christ Jesus." For them it is a done deal. "The [...]
I was brought up as an Evangelical fundamentalist Christian and when we read the verses in the Bible that spoke of Jesus' "brothers and sisters" we concluded that they were the other children of Joseph and Mary. What I didn't know is that this idea was unheard of in the early church, and that even the [...]
Calling Mary the "Queen of Heaven" seems to most non-Catholics a title too far. How can the simple girl from Nazareth be "Queen of Heaven"? Isn't that a pagan term? In fact, isn't the "Queen of Heaven" actually condemned in the Bible? In Jeremiah 44 the Hebrews are blamed for turning back to false gods and [...]
I am no moral theologian, but I understand some basics, and if more people understood the basics of Catholic moral theology they would understand (even if they did not agree with) the Catholic teaching on certain moral actions much debated in our society. The basic principle is this: every action is always either objectively right or [...]
Having a sandwich with my buddy--a former Baptist--when we were discussing the Mother of God. "Mary is the defender of Christian orthodoxy" I explained. "If you have the wrong view of Mary you will almost certainly have the wrong view of Christ. If you have the right view of Mary you will almost certainly have the [...]
Where does the word "Sodomy" come from and what does it mean? The word refers to the city of Sodom--a city in the Book of Genesis which, along with Gomorrah, was known for the wickedness of its inhabitants. In Catholic moral theology sodomy is one of the sins that "cry out to heaven". These four grave [...]
Recently I have been increasingly drawn to the Divine Mercy devotion. At the Catholic leadership conference in Philadelphia I met Fr Michael Gaitley--who is the director of the Divine Mercy shrine in Massachusetts and listened to his powerful talk on the Divine Mercy. I have begun praying the Divine Mercy chaplet every day, and have experienced [...]