Frequent readers will know that it is my firm belief that waning belief in the Real Presence is the single biggest problem confronting the Church–that from this problem all the other problems flow. According to several polls I’ve seen, close to a majority or perhaps more than a majority of self-identified weekly Mass-going Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. Even more frequent readers will know that I have, at the very least, a great... Read more

Let’s imagine the best Catholic hospital–the best possible Catholic hospital, the Platonic ideal of the Catholic hospital. The first thing to be said about this hospital is that it would not be like other hospitals, even other hospitals of comparable size, standing, geography, etc. It would be different, and not just because it would have a name like “Sacred Heart” or “Our Lady of Something”. And it would be orthodox, not in the sense that everyone checks the right doctrinal... Read more

I know almost nothing about prayer. But what I do know I don’t see being said around enough, so I want to say it. This post is about 3% drawn from personal experience/thoughts and 97% drawn from the writings of Sr Rachel, a.k.a. Ruth Burrows, Carmelite nun and the author of several best-selling books on prayer, which I am in the process of devouring. These books have opened my eyes so much, and I cannot encourage enough that you read... Read more

In Catholic moral theology, intrinsically disordered acts are acts that, by their very nature, are always opposed to the will of God. Among these is hitting children, or so I will argue here. First, The Stubborn Facts (Natural Theology And Anthropology) The stubborn fact of the matter is that it is not necessary to use spanking to discipline a child. Really that should be the end of the discussion, since I hope those Christians who believe spanking to be moral... Read more

Man, I really know how to do the click-baity headlines. Anyway, I’m continuing to riff on morality as worship, which is a vein I think I’ll keep mining (see also this). If the reason why we should behave morally is because it is a form of worship, then the question naturally poses itself of why we should worship God. It seems like a stupid question, and maybe it is. But I like stupid questions (and this is my blog), so... Read more

One of the most arresting scenes in Shakespeare’s Hamlet is when Hamlet confronts his mother Gertrude with the image of her dead husband, and compares it with the image of Claudius, her new husband. Gertrude has committed a great sin: she has married Claudius before she was done grieving for her husband; and maybe, deep down, she does know or suspect that Claudius killed her husband but doesn’t admit it to herself. Hamlet violently confronts her. Look here, upon this... Read more

(Full disclosure: the author bought me a drink and gave me his book. I found him highly likeable personally, which obviously makes me reluctant to write mean things about his work.) Andy Crouch is well known in the US Evangelical world as a journalist, writer and speaker. His new(ish?) book is Playing God: Redeeming the Gift of Power. The pitch is fairly straightforward: we as Christians have become afraid of using the word “power” and of thinking of ourselves as exercising... Read more

The Church has a monarchical structure, quite explicitly. In our ecclesiology, the Pope is the King of the Church, the bishop is the king of his diocese, and the parish priest is king of his parish and the husband king of the family. This dates back to the beginnings of the Church: the images that Jesus uses to install Peter at the head of the college of the Apostles are regnal images. The “rock” refers to Abraham, the rock of... Read more

  Since we’re on the topic of Catholic feminism, I want to take up this post that a friend recently tweeted, from the consistently interesting “Women in Theology” blog: “A Church that Changes“. The overall argument of the piece is that male headship (or, rather, male headship as signifying female subjection) in marriage was an uninterrupted, affirmed teaching of the Tradition of the Church up until St John Paul II came along (oh, Paul, what hast thou wrought!); and, therefore,... Read more

There are some words that have become so loaded that it is very hard to use them to convey meaning. They have become Rorschach Tests–the receiver of the word reads his own fantasized meaning into it. They have become shibboleths–to use them, or reject them, is a sign of political or group affiliation. Using them derails the conversation because they elicit an emotional response. I call them totem-words. Take, in Catholic World, “Vatican II”. You can be sure that when... Read more