Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.  In this same [Read More...]

Another question from RCIA: the old Protestant challenge: “Jesus says, ‘Call no man Father.’ Why do Catholics call their priest ‘father’ and the Pope ‘the Holy Father.’ This challenge usually flummoxes the ordinary Catholic. Sometimes he’s bewildered because he really doesn’t know his Bible that well and he’s confused. But he’s also bewildered because he [Read More...]

If you want to read more about Mary order my book, Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate.I wrote this book with a guy who was at Bob Jones University with me. David Gustafson is now an Evangelical who attends and Episcopal Church. He argues the Evangelical side and I defend the Catholic side, and we go into [Read More...]

People like to toot about how socialism takes money from the rich and gives it to the poor. I don’t mind that so much since I’m one of the ones likely to get some money out of it, but what I do dislike about socialism is the silly self righteousness of socialists. They’re always trying [Read More...]

At RCIA the question arose tonight about Mary being called ‘Mediatrix’.  “Don’t you Catholics know that the I Timothy 2:5 says, ‘There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus?’ ” Why do you need Mary as mediator? Now when a Protestant throws a verse to a Catholic as a proof text [Read More...]

Your blogger in Birmingham with Bishop Robert Baker (who ordained me when he was Bishop of Charleston, and Mike Dubrueil–formerly commissioning editor at Our Sunday Visitor, who worked with me on a couple of books, a prolific author in his own right, husband of the Queen of Catholic bloggers Amy Welborn and an all around [Read More...]

One of the Protestant objections to the Catholic faith is that we make too much of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She looms large in their perception of Catholicism, and they believe that we value Mary more than her Son, and that we pay her far too much attention. There are many theological replies that can [Read More...]

I was living in England as a young Anglican priest when my younger brother came to live with me. Some weeks after his arrival he learned about the death in a plane crash of a young friend of his we shall call Tom.  Tom was about 5’2″ with a shock of blond hair, a round [Read More...]

I’m off to Birmingham this morning to EWTN. I’ll be recording a segment with Johnette Benkovic’s Living His Life Abundantly on Monday and appearing on Marcus Grodi’s Journeys Home on Monday evening at 8:00 EST. I hope to see many of your smiling faces on the other side of the screen. Pray that these appearances will help [Read More...]

It was my unusual privilege today to celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day on the same calendar day. One Saturday a month I take the Saturday duties at St Mary’s, and as it happened, I celebrated All Saints’ Day with a splendid solemn Mass at 10:00 and then heard confessions in the afternoon and celebrated [Read More...]

Here is my latest article from National Catholic Register: Are Witches Real? [Read more...]

This article explains how redundant churches in Britain are to be turned into multi faith centers, gyms, pubs and dance halls.  Britain has a huge problem with too many church buildings and too few worshippers. Added to the problem is an expanding and moving population. Often churches exist where there are no people and there [Read More...]

I was listening to talk radio (code for Right wing extremism) in the car the other day. This is my usual fare when not listening to the fundy preachers and country gospel music. The guy said he was ‘a happy warrior’. It stuck in my mind when reading the epistle today at Mass from Ephesians [Read More...]

Your blogger sporting a new biretta. [Read more...]

Fr Blake has this post and video about real, solid Catholic missionary work in South America. None of this flaky liberation theology junk. While I’m at it, when I was training in England for Catholic ordination we had a sixties type Domincan come to lecture us about sacramental theology. He was getting all excited about [Read More...]

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Here’s a suggestion and question about the liturgy. I was celebrating Mass on Sunday away from St Mary’s and so I did not celebrate ad orientem. I did, however, go around to the front of the altar, and facing the people, administered the Kiss of Peace. After sharing the Kiss of Peace with the altar [Read More...]

Another report on drunken Britain. What really tickles me about this article is that the drunken state of Britain is blamed on “stronger drinks and larger glasses”. “Oh deary me!” says the nice English chap down the pub. “I seem to have found myself in the gutter drunk again! Whatever could have happened? Why I believe [Read More...]

Whoops, wrong Uncle Joe… Over at Fox News we read, “Democratic Vice Presidential candidate Joe Biden spoke about his views on abortion in an interview with The News Journal of Delaware earlier this month. He told his home state’s newspaper ‘I know that my church has wrestled with this for 2,000 years.’ ” 2,000 years? [Read More...]

Cardinal Keith O’Brien of Scotland has attacked the new UK Embryology bill which allows human tissue and cells to be taken without a person’s consent for use in experiments, including the creation of human/animal hybrids. He compares the bill to Nazi experiments and Frankenstein scenarios. Strong stuff. Read about it here. [Read more...]

Today is the feast of SS Simon and Jude. In some of the list of the apostles they come towards the end just before Judas Iscariot. Peter is listed first, so we can assume that the lists were compiled, according to priority. If so, this confirms what history also tells us, that Simon and Jude [Read More...]

Readers will know of my nostalgia for the chapel of Blackfriars in Oxford. The Dominicans there have an encouraging number of new vocations and these photographs show that they are developing an excellent renewal of the traditional forms of the liturgy as well as a renewal of Dominican religious life. This is a photo by [Read More...]