I’m off to speak at Coming Home Network’s Deep in History conference this weekend. The topic is the English Reformation, and I’ll be on the platform with English friends, Jamie and Joanna Bogle and biographer Joseph Pearce as well as fellow former Anglican priest, Ray Ryland, Marcus Grodi, Scott Hahn and others. I’m giving an overview of the Church in England up to the Reformation and focussing on correcting some widely held myths. The Protestant view of the Reformation is... Read more

I was a young Anglican priest and Father Richard was a venerable old man who had sacrificed much and suffered much as a priest. We had daily Eucharist in our parish at 8am, and on winter mornings the light would slant in through the stained glass set in the ancient stone walls. Very few people would venture out for the eight o’clock service. One Monday, later in the afternoon I met Fr. Richard and asked if there were many there... Read more

The other day my thirteen year old asked if witches were real. It’s a good question. In our society its difficult to discern between fact and fiction. Special effects in movies make the mot fantastic creatures seem very real indeed. Meanwhile, most of the media conspires to shield us from reality as effectively as possible. Are witches real or are they just the stuff of Harry Potter books, Wizard of Oz and Narnia? Are witches just ‘pretend’ like fauns and... Read more

The other evening I met with a couple of Evangelical Christians who have questions about the Catholic faith. Very sincere and honest seekers they were, but having been out of the apologetics ring for some time, I had forgotten how non-Catholic Christians view the faith. Time and again in our conversation I had the frustrating feeling that I believed most everything they believed, but that there was simply more to it. They, on the other hand, instinctively doubted what I... Read more

When Cardinal Newman became a Catholic he said, ‘This is real religion.’ There is something hard about Catholicism, and ‘hard’ means both ‘concrete’ and ‘difficult’. Catholicism is a nitty gritty, down to earth, common sense sort of faith. Other versions of the Christian faith indulge in utopianism or fancy theories or some sort of good idea. Catholicism is a tough old gal who squints and says, ‘Show Me’. Oh, we have mystics and visionaries, prophets, healers and dreamers, but each... Read more

What do you do with a rebellious teenager? Monsignor Guissani–founder of Communion and Liberation says go with the flow. Well, he doesn’t say that in so many words, but that’s what he means. In his book The Risk of Education he says that for education to be authentic a young person has to examine what he has been given and see if it works. This is especially true of religious education. In childhood we’re given a whole set of (let’s... Read more

Is this your image of a conservative? I’m not knocking stalwart ladies in tweed suits, but you needn’t be quite so prim to be a conservative. A conservative is not always a hatchet faced killjoy or a prim and parsimonious puritan. A conservative is simply someone who wants to conserve what’s good from the past to build a good future. A conservative doesn’t just look back with affection and forward with fear. He looks look back with criticism and foward... Read more

Amy Welborn has some news about attempts to get some decent norms established for Catholic Church Music in the USA. The people pictured above will be serving on the advisory committee. Talk about opening Pandora’s Box??!! There are so many upside down ideas about music at Mass. I knew a bishop in England who legislated that no one could use church music written before 1963 in services where he was presiding. Others want the other extreme with nothing after 1963... Read more

We know modernism can’t produce good art, but can Protestantism? I have a running argument with a non-Catholic friend about this. My point is that Catholics can produce better art because we have a sacramental system of belief. We really do believe that grace flows through the physical world. Protestants have problems with this. They’re suspicious of the physical. They’re semi-Manichees (and that is not the guy who composed the Pink Panther theme) Protestants don’t have sacraments because they don’t... Read more

It’s St Luke’s Day. He’s the patron saint of artists because he is supposed to have done portraits of the Madonna. The famous icon in Poland Our Lady of Czestochowa (image 0016) is supposed to be by him. So not a bad day to link over to The Cafeteria is Closed for some great pictures of beautiful tapestries at the much derided new cathedral in LA. Read more