Tag: catholic church

Kids These Days – The Catholic Thing

I’m old enough now to be the sort of person who will occasionally observe, in all apparent earnestness, that being around young people makes me feel young at heart. This is a concession to the realities of middle age which I am loath to make,…

The Problem of Evil and the Firmness of Faith

I was listening to the Bible in a Year Podcast when these lines came up from 2 Chronicles 28:3: “ burned incense in the valley of the son of Hinnom, and burned his sons as an offering, according to the abominable practices of the nations whom…

No Salvation Outside the Church

How many of these can you identify? Marcionites, Montanists, Sabellians, Donatists, Quartodecimans, Pneumatomachians, Apollonarians, Monophysites, Nestorians, Waldensians.  These are all groups that broke from the Church, insisting that they…

An ‘Odyssey’ for Our Time

I don’t often comment on films or – truth be told – usually care much about them. I leave that to those who do care and are much better at it. (See under: Miner, Brad.) Most movies seem, to me, to have a greater cultural impact than they…

Of the Ecclesial Crisis and Winter Bread

The excommunications issued to the six bishops involved in the Society of St. Pius X’s consecrations are easy to defend. Pope Leo told the SSPX not to consecrate more bishops. They did it. He’s the supreme authority in the Church. They are not.…

Thoughts from the Memory Hole

Americans don’t suffer from amnesia.  We prefer it.  Memory shapes who we are as individuals, a nation, and a culture.  But we define ourselves as a “new order of ages.”  Those words are stamped directly on America’s Great Seal.  Thus, Americans…

Thoughts from the Memory Hole

Americans don’t suffer from amnesia.  We prefer it.  Memory shapes who we are as individuals, a nation, and a culture.  But we define ourselves as a “new order of ages.”  Those words are stamped directly on America’s Great Seal.  Thus, Americans…

Hard Lessons from a Priest Who Stayed in Gaza

In the interest of diplomacy and personal relations, it’s normally a good idea to follow the adage, “If you can’t say anything nice about someone, don’t say anything at all.” But when it comes to assessing challenging and complex situations,…