So a few days ago, Pope Francis was filmed avoiding having his papal ring kissed. Following the method of the Right Wing Panic Machine over the past few years in always keeping conservatives ginned up about stupid stuff so that they are easy to manipulate, the conservative Catholic blogosphere decided that this was the Panic du Jour to scream about that week and declared it ‘disturbing, bizarre’ and all the rest of it, with lots of chin-pulling from the Usual... Read more
Praise the LORD! For it is good to sing praises to our God; for he is gracious, and a song of praise is seemly. The LORD builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel. He heals the brokenhearted, and binds up their wounds. He determines the number of the stars, he gives to all of them their names. Great is our LORD, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure. The LORD lifts up the downtrodden, he casts... Read more
He writes I believe that God really wants all of Roman Catholic, Protestant, Orthodox to be united. I think we all have nuances in our beliefs that cause separation (assurance of salvation, etc.). However, we have something that we all agreed with that is far more important than all these things: Our understanding of the Person of Jesus Christ. If I’m not mistaken all 3 major branches that I’ve just mentioned, all believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of... Read more
I am coming to speak on the Blessed Virgin Mary on Wednesday, March 27, not once but twice! 12:00 pm at St. Mary’s Catholic Church 725 Spruce Street Potlatch, Idaho 83855 Open to all and includes a served lunch. No need to RSVP. March 27th at 7:00 pm St. Augustine’s Catholic Center at the University of Idaho 628 S Deakin St. Moscow, Idaho 83843 See you there! Read more
…and not worry how they spend it. I know. I know. They’ll just blow it on drink or drugs. And there is a case to be made for that. But there is also something to be said for C.S. Lewis’ reply to Tolkien when he scolded him for giving to a beggar by saying, “He’s just going to spend it on drink.” Quoth Lewis, “I was just going to spend it on drink.” As the article notes: There are many... Read more
What better way to add some penitential buzzkill to your Lent than to bring in a blood-sucking lawyer to analyze all the legal issues at play in your most beloved childhood films: Happy Saturday! Read more
Continuing from last Friday, we keep looking at ways suggested by Deacon Nick Senger to observe fasting during Lent, along with my commentary in boldface. My commentary, understand, is not meant to tell you what to think about these suggestions, still less what to do in response to them. If any of them speak to you then by all means try it whatever response I happen to have to them. Rather, the idea is to, if you will, provide a... Read more
Over on the Book of Face, I remarked that I’ve been Catholic for 30 years and I cannot remember ‘Kumbaya’ ever being sung in a liturgy or even at a charismatic conference. The claim of overuse that I perpetually heard from ‘faithful conservative Catholic’ bashers of ‘Kumbaya Catholics’, like the claims of the allegedly ubiquitous Clown Mass, strike me as urban legends. Sherry replied: I’ve been traveling the Catholic world endlesssly for over 20 years, attending Mass in and working in... Read more
When I entered the Church, I did so as the husband of a wonderful woman who, among other things, has always loved folk music. I’m wasn’t as big a fan as Jan is, but I do enjoy it and Jan’s love for it made me appreciate it more because it is music that means a lot to the woman I love. As a result, I came to appreciate in particular the handmade nature of folk music. It comes from ordinary... Read more
I was struck by the readings on Sunday, regarding the covenant with Abraham and the Transfiguration. One key to understanding Scripture is to look at how the Church combines them in the Mass readings. The gospel reading is nearly always a commentary (sometimes very subtle) on the Old Testament text in the first reading. Both the readings on Sunday were, by no accident, “vision literature’ and both relate stories that describe real-world experiences of Otherworld things pertaining to the future,... Read more
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