So I get a text from one of the high school kids, “Father can I call you?” I text back, “Call me now.” I’m wondering if he is in some kind of trouble. We’ll call him Sam. Phone rings, “Father, this is Sam.” “What’s up?” “I want to get a tattoo, but it says in Leviticus that you should not adorn yourselves with tattoos. Can you help me on this?” “Sam. That was written for the Jews five thousand years... Read more

  This vapid article from The Daily Telegraph explains that the “metrosexual” man has evolved into the “spornosexual” man. For those who are not familiar with the terminology, the “metrosexual” was a term coined by a fashion writer Mark Simpson in 1994: How quickly your children grow up. Although it seems only yesterday, I first wrote about him in 1994 after attending an exhibition organised by GQ magazine called “It’s a Man’s World”. I’d seen the future of masculinity and it was... Read more

In the wake of yesterday’s prayer meeting with Pope Francis, Mahmoud Abbas, Shimon Peres and leaders of the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, Jewish and Muslim faiths, one wants to ask, “So what?” Really now. What good does it do to bring people together to pray on a nice June day in an Italian garden? It was just a photo op right? Get everyone together. Pose for the cameras. Some Middle Eastern type kissing. Now let’s go home. Hold on a minute.... Read more

Here is an excellent question from the heart which came up in the combox. It’s not only a good question, but it is framed in a polite and honest way by a woman genuinely seeking an answer….unlike the one I will publish later in this post. Fr. Dwight, what can you suggest to someone like me who, as a woman, finds Islam extremely horrific and evil, and the thought that Muslims supposedly worship the same loving, true God that I... Read more

Beachy Head is a famous landmark on the South coast of England. It is a high bluff overlooking the sea and it ends in a sheer drop. The cliff is a historic suicide location. In 2004 a group of Christians decided to start the Beachy Head Chaplaincy Team. A group of trained volunteers teamed with a handful of paid professionals patrol the cliffside area 24-7 to try to stop suicides. You can read more about their work in this article... Read more

So I’m reading this article about the Pope being in poor health in the Huffington Post (while holding my nose) only to find that yours truly is quoted: A story at the conservative website Newsmax on the eve of Francis’ three-day trip to the Holy Land last month claimed the pontiff has gained weight since his election and is having difficulty breathing. The article suggested that Francis “may be slipping into a form of chronic heart failure.” That isn’t a scenario... Read more

We are in a situation in the West that the Christian church has never experienced before. We have a good news to proclaim, but those who need to hear are deaf. The atheists and anti-Catholics we can deal with. We know they hate God and hate the gospel, and we can understand and maybe even sympathize a little with how they feel. Maybe they were hurt, betrayed, disappointed or wounded by members of the Church. Maybe they were poorly catechized... Read more

This article by Ed Cumming, a young journalist writing in the Daily Telegraph, goes on about how he adopted a ‘monastic’ lifestyle. I clicked through to read it and soon realized that all he was doing was downsizing. He moved into a flat and started with nothing but a mattress on the floor. When I helped my girlfriend to move house last year, an experience I don’t care to relive, I pledged that the next time I changed addresses I would... Read more

 Mrs Brady, Catholic Old Lady is one of Standing on My Head’s guest bloggers Why look who it is! Michael and Janie! You know I was down here on my knees doing the weeding and just wishing someone would drop by and give me a good reason to quit, and how here the two of you are, and I’ll bet you want some milk and cookies don’t you? That’s little Charlie in the wagon isn’t it? Bring him in and... Read more

…you don’t believe nothing. You’ll believe anything. I’ll leave the Chesterton fans to quote the exact quote. Someone else has observed that the rise of rationalism in a society will always bring about more superstition. Another observation was that when sacraments are denied witchcraft starts to be on the rise. Here’s a cautionary tale about a bunch of educated, middle class English people who were conned out of $2m by a woman posing as a shaman. She took their money... Read more