Jonathan Petrie of London’s Daily Telegraph explains what’s going on as the world’s Anglican primates meet in Tanzania. Basically, the bishops of the developing world are still hoping mad over the ordination of Vicki Gene Robinson as Bishop of New Hampshire, and the Episcopal Church’s refusal to stop ordaining homosexuals. The don’t much like presiding ‘bishop’ Kate Schori, and have set up an alternative conference in a neighboring hotel. One of the many problems in worldwide Anglicanism is that the... Read more

Here’s a link to the podcast of my homily on Sunday. It’s about the beatitudes and how to get poor. Read more

  Strong Woman has prompted me to tell my St Bernadette story. This happened the summer of 1987 when (still an Anglican priest) I took three months to make a pilgrimage hitch-hiking from England to Jerusalem…staying in monasteries and convents en route. I arrived in Nevers tired, hot and dusty after a discouraging day. My arrival there was a little miracle in itself, but once I got settled I came down to dinner, and in a moment a very nice... Read more

These three remain: Faith, Hope and Love. These everlasting virtues form a little incarnated Holy Trinity. The three are intertwined and co-mingled. They are three persons but one unity. Faith is not faith without hope and love, and hope is not hope without faith and love, and love is not love without faith and hope. The blessed three sit at the same table. They feed one another and nurture each other in a beautiful and never ending banquet of dignity... Read more

My favorite film: Shawshank Redemption. Here’s a film that’s worth watching over and over. The script, the acting, the cinematography, the symbolism, the music, everything comes together perfectly in a cinematic experience that rocks the boat for me every time I see it. I could write oodles on this film. Just go watch it if you haven’t ever seen it. Look out. It’s tough. It’s gritty and some of the scenes of violence are pretty gut wrenching. However, the scenes... Read more

I’m as keen as the next guy about apologetics, having a friendly intellectual dog fight, swapping proof texts and proving my point, but one of the things that is a bit worrying about the orthodox Catholic scene in the USA is a tendency to focus on the fine points of an argument or the precise definitions of a moral decision, doctrinal position or liturgical nicety to the exclusion of a real encounter with Christ. Sometimes on Catholic radio the jabber... Read more

  Benedict XVI talks much about the ‘dictatorship of relativism’, and not everybody’s sure quite what he is talking about. When he uses the phrase, ‘dictatorship of relativism’ he’s also talking about the tyranny of tolerance. This is walking a tightrope. Nobody wants to dispute the fact that tolerance is a virtue, and nobody wants to argue for intolerance, however, there does need to be an ordering of virtue. Tolerance is too often mistaken for charity, and being nice is... Read more

I believe this image of St Agatha comes from Lechlade Church in England. Lechlade is a beautiful town which claims to be the source of the River Thames. One October I took a two week canoe journey down the Thames from Lechlade. Agatha was a virgin martyr from the middle of the third century. The reason she is pictured here in a rather uncomfortable pose is that part of her torture was to have her breasts cut off. As the... Read more

I have come across a website with the remarkable title ‘Thinking Anglicans’. The website compiles blog posts and makes comment from a viewpoint that basically toes the liberal humanist Anglican establishment party line. The title of their website, ‘Thinking Anglicans’ is immediately offensive because it sounds elitist and condescending. It implies that the authors and readers of the website are the only Anglicans who think. Anyone who disagrees with them (like those awful fundamentalist, superstitious African Anglicans or those crude... Read more

We shall not cease from explorationAnd the end of all our exploringWill be to arrive where we startedAnd know the place for the first time.Through the unknown, remembered gateWhen the last of earth left to discoverIs that which was the beginning;At the source of the longest riverThe voice of the hidden waterfallAnd the children in the apple-treeNot known, because not looked forBut heard, half-heard, in the stillnessBetween two waves of the sea.Quick now, here, now, always—A condition of complete simplicity(Costing... Read more