There’s a Problem with the Virgin Mary There’s a problem with the Virgin Mary. I have that problem, and I think that others do too. I believe all four major dogmas about Our Lady, but I do not feel close to her in my religious experience. As a priest and as a Catholic, that distresses me. Protestants would be happy that I feel distant from her, since they don’t really see why she is important. My Catholic faith tells me... Read more
Is It Moral To Bomb Iran? A week before the United States military action in Iran, I did a TikTok video and Facebook Reel on this question: “Would it be moral to use Bunker Busting Bombs to destroy Iran Nuclear Sites? ” I have a lot of followers who often wonder about these types of questions. I had no problem answering, “Yes.” What troubled me more was the fact that, to my knowledge, no other Catholic leader... Read more
Surprising The World With An American Pope America went bonkers. The world went wild. And all of us papal pundits felt absolutely gobsmacked at the surprising choice. Conventional wisdom held an American from the United States could not be elected pope. Why? Well, then the good old U.S.A. would be a superpower in the secular world and a superpower in the spiritual realm. No Cardinal wanted that to happen. Except no one told the Cardinals of the Roman Catholic... Read more
I remember a night long ago in college, when I was searching for why I should remain a Catholic, I came across one of (now Saint) John Henry Cardinal Newman’s major works “An Essay on the Development of Christian Doctrine”, published in 1845. Yes, I know. I should have been out drinking, or vegging, or dating, but no, I was reading Newman and I was in the stratosphere. I had just discovered the inescapable reason why I had to remain... Read more
On Valentine’s Day, February 14, 2025, Vice-President J. D. Vance gave a historic speech at the Munich Security Conference. First responses from the elites he spoke to and from the legacy foreign press, and then our legacy media were ferocious. Calling the speech ill-timed, out of touch, and repulsive to our allies, the critics almost universally condemned both the speech and Vance. Then, other voices from other media and ordinary Europeans crept into the public sphere. Brilliant, much-needed, historic, said... Read more
Why A Priest Writes Christian Fantasy After being inundated with the summer’s new television shows, Game Of Thrones–House of the Dragon and The Lord of the Rings–The Rings of Power, I did a lot of thinking about why I write Christian fantasy. I really should qualify that though. If I say I write Christian fantasy, I could be lumped in with the many Christian fantasy novelists who write fantasy with a proselytizing bent. The label might make a prospective... Read more
The Coming of Tolkien’s, The Rings Of Power A week from now, Amazon Prime will premier the long-awaited series, The Rings of Power. A prequel to Tolkien’s much beloved Lord of the Rings Trilogy, it tells tales cobbled together from the appendices of that trilogy–and therein lies the problem. Amazon has released several trailers and interviews with the cast and spun some of the plot in drips and drabs to ferociously hungry fans. It has done so mostly through... Read more
Is That All There Is? Disaffiliation From Religion Increases Perhaps one of the least liked of Jesus’s parables is that of the wealthy man who reaps a great harvest, puts up extra barns, believes he should eat, drink and be merry, and finds himself dead that night. What a downer. I’m reminded of Peggy Lee’s fabulous song “Is That All There Is?” thinking that those would be the last words of the wealthy man. Except…an awful lot of people think... Read more
The Radical Left Is A Religion Talk about unhinged. It may seem like the usual radical left vs. pro-life drama. But it’s not. When the Supreme Court recently handed down its decision on abortion, the radical left went bonkers. That’s when it became evident to people that the radical left has turned into a religion. It has codified its creed: human autonomy is the chief right. This is clarified in that jingoistic popular mantra–“My Body, My Choice!” And though... Read more
A Time Of Despair? Going on social media can be a dismal time for Catholics. Whether it is TikTok or FaceBook or some other site, non-Catholics, especially, gleefully announce the demise of Christianity as a whole or Catholicism in particular. Social media experts announce that belief in God is waning in the U. S. (down to 81 % from 95% fifteen years ago). They also parrot the view, unfortunately true, that U. S. Catholics are not coming to... Read more
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