Today is William Shakespeare’s birthday, and it’s getting to be pretty well accepted that the mysterious man of Avon was actually a Catholic. Joseph Pearce’s book, The Quest for Shakespeare is the best of the books exploring the evidence for Shakespeare’s Catholicism. It is a web of intriguing evidence from the fact that Shakespeare’s mother came from a famous family of recusant Catholics, his school teachers were Catholics and his father was fined for being a Catholic as was his... Read more
One of the basic assumptions of Protestantism is Primitivism. This is the idea that the Catholic Church became corrupt at some point and that the Reformers need to ‘restore’ the simple, primitive faith of the early Christians. Primitivist movements have been around since the beginning of the church, the Protestant Reformation threw up a good number of Primitivist sects like the Amish and Mennonite, but no part of church history is more replete with Primitivist Restorationist movements than 19th century... Read more
Does truth of the Catholic faith matter, and what is more important, what you do or what you believe? This debate has come up in the comboxes on this blog in two different ways: The first is with a reader who is a Catholic but asserts that what is most important are the good works people do. Catholic belief, attendance at Mass, practicing the sacraments–all that is secondary. Better to be a good pagan than a bad Catholic. The second... Read more
From the combox I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, not because of archaeology, or history, or linguistics, or any other secular discipline. I’m a member of the Church of Jesus Christ for the exact same reason that you are a member (and leader) of the Roman Catholic Church: because it bears good fruit in my life. This person’s comment should put paid once and for all the idea that The Church of Jesus Christ... Read more
Do you see how he comes to you out of the darkness? That is where you will always experience the Divine Mercy–in the midst of your darkness. This is why he comes at Eastertide because he comes out of the darkness with his light, and he meets you in your darkness with the rays of forgiveness and love. Read more
The Anchoress has some typically intelligent and fair comment on the upcoming renewal of women’s religious life in the USA here along with a good list of links and updates on comment. Max Lindemann writes eloquently on the whole business here. Kathy Schiffer looks back and explains teh devastating effect humanistic psychology had on Catholic religious orders in the 60s and 70s. Go here. I can’t help comparing the visitation and planned reform of the religious orders with what took... Read more
A friend of mine used to quip, “When you’re talking about Christian music it’s pretty safe to substitute ‘bad’ for ‘Christian’. Who hasn’t had to endure a Christian rock band or sit through a worship with some aging trendy strumming a guitar and inflicting folk music or light rock on everyone? Why is it that so often Christian music is so awful? I think there are a couple of reasons. The first is that the musicians and their audience mistake... Read more
Now that the geeks at Patheos have give us such a snazzy new re-fit, I am going through and moving a good number of my archived articles from my website to my blog. I hope readers will explore the ‘Archived Articles’ tab to see what’s there. I’ll be updating it regularly with old articles and with recent publications for the various magazines, websites and papers for which I write. Do Catholics worship idols? It’s idle speculation. Check this article and... Read more
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Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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