I’ve always thought the Shroud was genuine: turns out the 1988 tests were probably botched (and, I suspect, the guy in charge of the tests had an agenda). What always cracks me up about critics of the Shroud is the big thing they never say: how it was done if it’s a fraud. Typically what happens is they point to the dating and say “It’s a medieval forgery” but neglect to give any explanation of how the forgery was achieved... Read more

Due the influence of Jews, Freemasons, Communists, and Satanists, the ranks of you, my cringing followers, has remained at 128 for over three days! THIS IS A CRISIS! Therefore, my assignment for you today (taking priority even over the duty of writing a daily haiku in my honor) is to recruit more Followers: preferably weak-minded people who think a scientific “personality test” will be their key to happiness and fulfillment. GO, MY FOLLOWERS, GO! WE MUST INCREASE THE NUMBER OF... Read more

If you like what you read here, please help keep an emphatically lower middle class writer solvent so he can keep bringing you the weird combination of offbeat humor, theological ramblings, ecclesial and civil politics, and various cultural ephemera that you’ve come to realize you can’t live without. Click on the PayPal button to the left and help CAEI stay on the air and our kids stay fed. You can either make a straight donation or, if you like to... Read more

will believe anything. Read more

Buy all their playsets and toys! Read more

…from people who mistake brutality for courageous realism. How to Make Terrorists Talk The facts of the article are not particularly contestable, so the response by the Brutality as Courageous Realism crowd is simply to laugh and mock, because they got nothing. This stuff is not new, by the way. Henry Kolm was part of a group of WWII interrogators who condemned the confusion of brutality with efficiency when he noted, “We got more information out of a German general... Read more

I’ve never had something I’ve written be the subject of a homily before. Happily, it was not a homily on Hell in which my life served as a warning to those coming after me. But there’s still time for that, I reckon. Read more

among intellectual types like A.N. Wilson. Hopefully, we’ll see a few more members of the Chattering Classes break with the great Herd of Independent Minds and start actually using their noggins about God. There’s only so many times you can feel the thrill of thinking you made Ma and Pa Hardware Store Owner in Dubuque feel dumb for believing in God before it starts to lose its lustre. Eventually, the hunger for God gets to you and you start to... Read more

A reader writes: I was just wondering if you or any of your readers knew of good books or websites for couples discerning marriage. There seems to be no shortage of books for engaged couples, but nothing I’ve really been able to find for pre-engaged discerning couples. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks and God Bless I’m not much use on questions like this. Our parish uses and inventory called FOCCUS (which you can probably Google) and we help out... Read more

…on a recent prayer request. Read more