First, some flattery: I actually was at ChesterCon Seattle ’09, and got your “By What Authority?” from you in person. It was awesome. It’s helped me along two main lines: a) Pushing me further away from a ‘sola scriptura’ viewpoint of the nature of Scripture and Traditionb) Helping to assure me in a time of doubt regarding the person of Jesus in history (further development of the notion that oral tradition doesn’t just pop out of thin air) Second, a... Read more

You’re making a huge mistake, O Prince of Peace. Bush III continues to live out the Hope and Change of the Amateur Administration. Meanwhile, more people will get killed propping up a failed narco-state. Read more

FAIL whenever he tries to square the circle. Ever since the Maine loss, the guy has been trying to figure out some way to have a Catholic Church without a magisterium and a sacred Tradition and a Scripture–in a word, a Church that does not teach what it has always taught. He whipsaws between threatening the Church with retribution for being what she is and teaching what she teaches and the dim and flickering hope that Vatican III or The... Read more

Today, my legions of human zombies, I offer you the latest in dodgy human experimentation: http://www.theonion.com/content/themes/common/assets/onn_embed/embedded_player.swf?image=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.theonion.com%2Fcontent%2Ffiles%2Fimages%2FFAT_ASTRONAUT_article.jpg&videoid=84526&title=Astronaut%20Suspects%20NASA%20Using%20Him%20To%20Test%20Space’s%20Effects%20On%20Fat%20People Read more

Thanks! I can never repay you. Read more

One of the hazards of being a writer is that somebody is always sending you their book to review. Marvin Olasky recently got sent a book: The prestigious Oxford University Press sent me the new book Morality Without God by Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, a Dartmouth professor. (I’m going to quote him a lot, so I’ll use his initials.) WSA begins by complaining that his students quote to him Dostoevsky’s favorite line, “If God is dead, everything is permitted.” WSA then argues... Read more

yesterday, watch the news say exactly the same thing in dead earnest today. This is a fisk job for Mike Flynn! Read more

A reader writes: Mark: I saw you on TV on EWTN’s Bookmark with Doug Keck discussing your books: Mary, Mother of the Son. You and Doug made reference, an off handed remark regarding someone named “Lorraine Brettler” (spelling?) referring to someone who expounds on Mary as pagan goddess. I am not familiar with this woman and there was no explanation in the show and I googled it as well and cannot come up with anything. Thanks. The name is “Loraine... Read more

My kids will never be invited to participate in a “Cash for Grades” fundraiser. They will get good grades by studying hard, not by paying off the school. Read more

I love it when Dominican common sense is brought to bear on goofy moral ledgerdemain from the New Atheists. Basic message: New Atheists live as though God exists anyway (while pretending he does not) and continually steal moral precepts from the theistic worldview, assuming their transcendent authority. That’s not intellectual coherence. That’s sleight of hand or extraordinary dim-wittedness. Let’s hear again from Richard Rorty, who is a *real* atheist: “Anybody who thinks that there are well-grounded theoretical answers to [the... Read more