As a member of the Angelic Warfare Confraternity, the Dominican Friars’ apostolate for Catholic men and women who pray for one another as they seek to grow in chastity, I was deeply honored when the confraternity’s director, Father James Dominic Brent, O.P., recently sent an e-mail to members urging them to read my book My Peace I Give You: Healing Sexual Wounds with the Help of the Saints. Here is Father Brent’s message: Greetings in Christ to the brothers and... Read more
Tonight I was proud to witness Washington Archbishop Donald Cardinal Wuerl deliver an outstanding defense of Father Greg Shaffer, the George Washington University Newman Center chaplain whom gay-rights activists are seeking to have removed for upholding Catholic teaching on homosexual acts. The defense came within a homily at a 7:30 p.m. student Mass that Wuerl concelebrated with Father Greg (as everyone calls him) and two former GW Newman Center chaplains at Washington, D.C.’s St. Stephen Martyr in Washington, D.C., the... Read more
What has Athens to do with Jerusalem? You can find out today in Homiletic & Pastoral Review, which features my article “The Septuagint in the Theology of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict XVI”: A review of Joseph Ratzinger/Pope Benedict’s writings on the Septuagint reveals that he does not see the translation’s importance as being confined to the past. Because it shaped not only the Church’s reception of divine revelation, but also her conception of the relationship between faith and reason, he holds that... Read more
From an e-mail I sent today to one of my closest friends, who is concerned that I am causing unnecessary division by castigating fellow Catholics who turn a blind eye to antisemitism in the traditionalist community: I would like to ask you to prayerfully reflect upon your concern that I am being divisive. You had also expressed concern that I was being divisive when I criticized Christopher West. In that case, the issue over which I was criticizing fellow Catholics... Read more
[UPDATE, 4/9/13: I just learned that the eve I posted this was the beginning of Holocaust Remembrance Day. Had I known that, I would have added an extra prayer request for survivors and their families.] Remember just after the papal election when Father Z and Taylor Marshall were rightly incensed by the broadside against Pope Francis published by Rorate Caeli? The traditionalist blog had repeated a vicious smear against Pope Francis by Argentinean blogger, Marcelo Gonzalez, who called Francis a “sworn... Read more
Father Greg Shaffer is one of my parish priests. I live a stone’s throw from the George Washington University Newman Center, where he has been chaplain since 2009, and have seen for myself the fantastic fruit his ministry is bearing. With the help of the FOCUS missionaries whom he helped bring to the university, Father Greg has fostered an exponential increase in Catholic students’ participation at the Newman Center. The centerpiece of his program is making the sacraments of the... Read more
Backstage at the Bottom Line, NYC, with Howard “Eddie” Kaylan (left) and Mark “Flo” Volman, New Year’s Eve, probably 1990 This Judaism-to-Sixties-rock-to-Christianity-to-academia life path is contagious! I just learned with joy that one of my favorite musicians from the 1960s is now a Christian, active as a youth minister in his local church, and is a professor at a Christian college in Nashville. Mark Volman was born in 1947 to a Jewish father and Catholic mother. He has said that... Read more
Today is the “feast day” of one of my personal patron saints, Father Edward Dowling, S.J., who died on this day in 1960, which that year was Palm Sunday. Father Dowling helped spouses save their marriage (via the Cana Conference movement, which he helped found), helped anxiety sufferers find peace (through Recovery, Inc., for which he led meetings), and, most famously, helped untold millions of alcoholics find spiritual healing (via his influence on Bill W. in developing the spirituality of... Read more
Father George David Byers’ Holy Souls Hermitage today features a deeply moving account of conversion from Pornchai Moontri, one of the Catholic prison inmates I wrote about in this space last month. In “Divine Mercy and the Doors of My Prisons,” Pornchai, who suffered parental neglect and sexual abuse in childhood, writes about how, as a convicted murderer, he was led to the love of Christ by a fellow prisoner—Catholic priest Father Gordon MacRae. I was especially moved to read... Read more
Want to read the review of Ralph Martin’s book Will Many Be Saved? that David Paul Deavel published in Catholic World Report? You can’t—at least, not on CWR’s website. Mark Brumley, president of Ignatius Press, which owns CWR, took down the review in an act that he himself admits is “blatant censorship.” The reason? Because Martin’s book, and Deavel’s review, include trenchant criticisms of the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar—who is published by Ignatius Press. Brumley writes: If you’re... Read more
Feast of Eden
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