I drive a six year old Volvo. It’s a nice car. The headline says I love it, but really I just like it a lot. I also like my ten year old motorcycle, my house in the suburbs and the other stuff that fills the house. Is that okay? I mean, I’m a Catholic priest. I’m supposed to be living in poverty and all that? Yes and no. I’m a Diocesan priest. I haven’t taken a vow of poverty, but... Read more

A post to amuse and infuriate… Somehow or other a combox critic has assumed that because I have asserted that men and women are different that I do not believe in equality for women. This is because in the past the superiority of men has been assumed and women have been downtrodden. What troubles me is that the person making this statement gives the appearance of being intelligent and somewhat educated. He continues the assumption that because I am a... Read more

Blessed John Henry Newman wrote, “Ten thousand difficulties do not make one doubt.” What he means is that there is a difference between a doubt and a difficulty. When we start to think through our Catholic faith we would be negligent or stupid not to have some problems. After all, the things we propose as true in the Catholic faith stretch the human mind and heart. However, many people are worried that they are doubting their faith if they scratch... Read more

Here’s how same sex marriage will lead to a police state: First this article on Slate calls for the legalization of polygamy. The call for polygamy sort of springboards from the argument for same sex marriage. The piece argues from various viewpoints, but the underlying principle is the same: “Let us decide what marriage is.” Here is the defining last paragraph: The definition of marriage is plastic. Just like heterosexual marriage is no better or worse than homosexual marriage, marriage... Read more

One of the creepiest things about religion is the tendency for those involved to drift into cult-like behaviors. How can you tell if a religious group is operating like a cult? It’s difficult because the people in a religious group can behave like a cult without them becoming a full blown, identifiable religious cult. What groups am I thinking of? It could be a small local group or a large international group. It could be a parish or a school.... Read more

Sorry not to have been blogging for some time, but after a week’s vacation in Belize I need a few days to catch up. While in Belize we had the chance to visit some Mayan ruins. I climbed to the top of the main pyramid in Caracol and sitting up there on a beautiful day in April, the jungle birds crying and the jungle trees and neatly trimmed lawned–I imagined the priests offering their sacrifices of grain and human lives... Read more

The horrors of the Philadelphia abortion clinic of Kermit Gosnell rank with the worst serial killers in US history. Jill Stanek writes here comparing Gosnell to mass murderers Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy and Richard Speck. The media covered gruesome stories like that in every morbid and macabre detail. Likewise, if the crime fits their political agenda–let’s say for gun control or to flan the racist flames–they’ll publicize crime stories and push their agenda as much as they can. But there... Read more

With the death of Margaret Thatcher the conversations have been buzzing about the goodness or otherwise of trickle down economics, Thatcherism, Reaganomics–you name it. What people don’t seem to get is that any economic or political system, without personal virtue, will be a failure. Every ideology will fail. Every economic system will fail. Every political system will collapse. None of them can ever be any better than the individuals who operate them. Conversely, with individual virtue, any political system or... Read more

Jimmy Akin does his usual detailed detective work to tell us exactly when Jesus died. Go here. Read more