A couple of years ago I was visiting England and was invited to celebrate Mass for a friend at his parish. I happened to know that Priscilla Tolkien–J.R.R. Tolkien’s only daughter was a parishioner there, so I asked the sacristan if she was likely to be in attendance. “Oh yes, Miss Tolkien is there in the second row.” So I had the privilege of celebrating Mass with her in attendance. After Mass she stopped and commented on my homily and... Read more

Yesterday for the feast of Our Lady of the Rosary we had a special school Mass and I described for the children this scene from the Council of Elrond–extended version of LOTR. After Frodo says, “I will take the ring to Mordor, but I do not know the way…” Which, by the way, is probably the most succinct definition of faith I can think of–immediately the fighting ends. The rivalry finishes. The Fellowship begins. “You have my sword!” says Aragorn.... Read more

At Assisi the Holy Father knocks on the head any kind of sentimental, New Age or compromising peace. Franciscan peace is not something saccharine,” he said, “That is not the real Saint Francis! Nor is it a kind of pantheistic harmony with forces of the cosmos… That is not Franciscan either; it is a notion some people have invented!” “The peace of Saint Francis is the peace of Christ, and it is found by those who ‘take up’ their ‘yoke,’... Read more

Here is my piece for Aleteia today in which I comment on Franciscan poverty and the call for all of us to strip naked before God and get rid of all vanity and materialism that blinds us and puts idols in place of the everlasting love of God. In preparing my talk for the conference in Kalamazoo it occurred to me that our dependence on material goodies and worldly wealth we’re like babies and the goodies we suck up are... Read more

The Wizard of Oz is a pretty smart book because the Scarecrow, the Tin Man and the Cowardly Lion show three traits we need to be complete. If you only had a head, a heart and courage. It occurred to me on my walk this morning that the three popes illustrate what we need, the church needs and the world needs. What was the first thing Bl.John Paul the Great said on the balcony? “Do not be afraid!” He’s the... Read more

Here is my article for Aleteia on the Evangelize-Proselytize question. The article affirms the necessity for love in action when it comes to Evangelization, but I will write in more detail later on the need to also positively summon men and women to be converted to Jesus Christ and to come into full communion with the Catholic Church. One of the reasons so many Catholics of the Vatican II generation say that explicit evangelization is un necessary is because they are... Read more

Joseph Susanka reminds us here not to be too hasty with the new pope. I am duly chastised. One of the problems with the new media is the speed in which things are published and the speed at which responses are expected. A few weeks ago, it was known simply as  “The Interview.” Say those words, and everyone knew exactly what you were talking about. And we on the Catholic InteWebs were falling all over ourselves (and everyone around us) in... Read more

Yesterday I got itchy about Pope Francis seemingly saying that evangelism was a ‘solemn nonsense’. Still pondering yesterday’s papal interview with Eugenio Scalfari I came across this article from Pope Benedict’s 2007 visit to Brazil. In the article Pope Benedict XVI discusses the matter of proselytization and says to the Latin American bishops, “To you who represent the Church in Latin America, today I symbolically entrust my Encyclical Deus Caritas Est, in which I sought to point out to everyone... Read more