Fr Renuard West has posted some pictures of the new St Mary Help of Christians church being built in Aiken, South Carolina. This church along with St Paul’s Spartanburg and the new Our Lady of the Rosary is helping to put the Diocese of Charleston on the map for innovative traditional architecture. Here are some pics of St Mary’s Aiken. If you would like to help with the fund raising for Our Lady of the Rosary Church go here. Read more
Did the pagans really worship idols? If so, what was going on? To be precise, they did not worship idols as such, but they worshipped the gods who they believed the idols represented. But it was more than that. They also believed that the idols became the channels for the invisible god. If you like the spirit of the god can in and through the idol. This is why certain idols were venerated as sacred–because they were such effective transmitters... Read more
Michael Rose’s book Ugly As Sin: was read by the members of our building committee when they began planning the new Our Lady of the Rosary Church in Greenville, South Carolina. They studied the trends in modern architecture and did their homework. When I arrived in the parish four years ago they already had a modest, traditionally styled church planned. In our first meeting I asked if this was the sort of church they wanted to build and everyone affirmed that... Read more
Have you ever really stopped to consider how ugly gossip is? Working in school, family and parish life you experience time and again how colossally stupid, destructive and therefore sinful gossip can be. The reason gossip is stupid is because it almost invariably deals in half truths. A person gets one side of the story and one portion of the truth, then draws the wrong conclusion and tells another person. The lie becomes exaggerated and is spread further. Before long... Read more
How can you counter terrorism with torture when torture is a form of terrorism? Here’s why I mean by that radical statement that “torture is a form of terrorism” The power of terrorism is that it is completely lawless. The terrorist believes that his cause condones outrageous cruelty. His cause not only threatens to kill and maim, but to do so aimlessly at random and mindlessly. The terrorist’s main threat (and the reason he inspires terror) it that there is... Read more
Why not order a signed copy of my book The Romance of Religion as a Christmas gift? Here’s an excerpt In a world of useful things it might seem absurd to write a book in praise of romance. Who needs romance in a world that has been rationalized, economized, mechanized and computerized? Can romance survive in a world of profit margins and the bottom line? Isn’t romance (with its unfulfilled longing) a waste of time in a world where every desire... Read more
On this busy Solemnity there has been no chance to share my thoughts about the personal effect the dogma of the Immaculate Conception has had on me. Coming from an Evangelical background with a strong Calvinist slant, I was taught the doctrines of Total Depravity and Eternal Security. The subtleties of these beliefs, their nuances, conditions and qualifying statements may be mastered by theologians, but to a child the doctrines are on the one hand wonderful and destructive. Eternal Security... Read more
On the second Sunday of Advent I am always intrigued by John the Baptist’s diet of “locusts and wild honey.” The locust is a large grasshopper common in many places of the world. Known for swarming and devouring huge swathes of greenery and causing famine, it could be that the people of the Middle East caught the critters and ate them. Kind of “eat or be eaten” if the swarms were going to demolish their own crops. On the other... Read more
In commemoration of St Nicholas who famously slugged the heretic Arius I publish this piece written a few months ago for The Catholic Thing website: There was an odious man named Frank in our fundamentalist church when I was a boy who had a brood of badly behaved children. When one of them would act up Frank would haul the miscreant out of the sanctuary to wallop the child. When he would re appear with the unfortunate sprog Frank would... Read more
Catholic convert Charles Moore write in today’s Daily Telegraph about the coming demographic winter. This is the term for the plummeting birth rate in developed world and the catastrophic economic and social effects. He highlights P.D.James’ novel The Children of Men–a dystopian novel that, I predict, will become increasingly famous as her predictions prove true. James was a friend of Moore’s and a serious Anglican Christian. He reminisces: Phyllis James, whom I knew quite well for 25 years or more, was,... Read more
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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