Some time ago I had a long email conversation with an Evangelical friend about thing theological. I said to him, “Don’t worry. I simply want to dialogue with you. I don’t want to convert you.” He called me on it. He said, “First of all, I don’t really believe you. You do actually want me to become Catholic. Secondly, you should want me to become Catholic. If you really believe your religion, then you believe it is for my good now... Read more

From the archives for this beautiful feast of St Therese…what happens when Therese meets Nietzsche? Go here Read more

I was sitting at my desk when my secretary knocked on the door. I could see she was excited and breathless. “I have the Pope on the phone for you!” “Your Holiness, this is unexpected!” “I would like you to have a dialogue with you. However, since you are in the United States I would like this interview to take place in your mind. This is a chance for you, as one of my priests, to ask me questions.” “Your... Read more

Today’s feast day for St Jerome falls happily the day before the feast of St Therese of Lisieux. St Therese said, “How different are all the saints! In heaven the greatest doctor of the church will sit down with a little child.” So it is with these two. St Jerome–the cave dweller and patron of all bookish types who retreat to their cave and don’t like to be disturbed: St Jerome–the patron saint of curmudgeons and scholars. St Jerome was... Read more

Susan Robinson does late term abortions and then gives the corpse of the dead baby to the mother to hold. She takes baby footprints and gives the mother a “memory box”. She does this for late term abortions where there are fetal abnormalities. Read more about it here. Robinson said she sometimes will say “non-denominational prayers” with the mother and the family following the abortion, an interviewer wondered about this seemingly “macabre” situation of loving a baby in one’s arms “that you... Read more

Veteran journalist Seymour Hersh says the Obama Administration is far worse that Bush and that everybody is lying about everything and the mainstream media are covering up and “carrying water” for Obama. Read more here. One of the problems is the abundance of “information” from so many different sources. The internet has exploded with stories that purport to be “news stories” but are communicated through websites that are clearly propaganda outlets from either the political right, the political left or... Read more

Rod Dreher in the NY Times suggests that the effect of Pope Francis’ America interview is that American Catholics (and the rest of the liberal gang) now assume that Catholic bishops need to simply shut up about abortion, same sex marriage and contraception because the Pope has told them to. Read the article here. I fear he is correct. I’ve already read articles by homosexualists Catholics who have said (in effect) “I’m so glad Pope Francis has finally said that he accepts... Read more

I’m re-reading Lord of the Rings and have just finished the first book. Why is this such a great masterpiece? Not only because Tolkien spent his whole life writing and re-writing until it was perfect, but because of its deeply Catholic themes, and the main theme throughout the whole book is the triumph of the little one. In a few weeks I’ll have an article in National Catholic Register comparing Frodo to St Therese who also preached the Little Way, but... Read more

I’m feeling a bit blue today–still trying to get over a very heavy cold that knocked me out for five days last week. So I noted on Facebook that a glass of bourbon would probably be a very good medicine. The status elicited this comment from my friend Marcus Grodi: Actually, if you are a American Catholic, you need to relax with Basil Hayden bourbon. Note that the bottle states that this single batch Kentucky bourbon is made from the... Read more

Fr Charles Pope writes here on the beauty and strength of traditional church architecture. Catholics have often endured the charge that we are an unbiblical Church. Strange accusation, really, for the Church that collected the Scriptures, determined the canon of Scripture and preached it for 1,500 years before there ever was a Protestant denomination. The fact is we are quite biblical and often in ways that are stunningly powerful. For the Church, the Scriptures are more than merely ink spots on... Read more