It was announced on the first of this month that after attending Evensong in St Peter’s Basilica and visiting an Anglican Church in Rome, the news from the Vatican is that Pope Francis is in secret talks with Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Wellbeing about converting to the Anglican faith. Vatican spokesman Aprile Primera said that Pope Francis was drawn to Anglicanism for several reasons. He very much enjoyed Anglican evensong, admitting that the Anglican choir was much better even than the... Read more

The Federalist reports here on California’s attempt to throw pro life campaigner David Daleiden in prison because he secretly filmed Planned Parenthood officials seeming to discuss how they dismember unborn babies and crush their skulls before they are born so they can harvest and then sell their body parts. Yesterday, California Attorney General Xavier Becerra announced 15 charges against the pro-life journalists for recording their conversations with those involved in the fetal organ trade…While the recorded conversations took place in public places such... Read more

Writing for The Federalist Luma Simms offers her own stark critique of Rod Dreher’s Benedict Option. For those who are not in the know, Dreher’s recent book campaigns for Christians to beat a retreat in the culture wars. He doesn’t exactly call for us to hunker down, pull up the drawbridges and man the battlements, but there is a definite fortress mentality in his approach. I have reviewed Dreher’s book positively here at The Imaginative Conservative, and I think it is a good... Read more

I am recording my homilies for Lent–a series on sin based on Dante’s Inferno. The first week (which you can find here) was on the Vestibule of Hell–where we find the lazy and indifferent. They didn’t do anything terribly wrong, but neither did they do anything wonderfully good. Then the sins of incontinence–loving good things the wrong way or too much: Lust, Gluttony and Greed. Sunday we moved on to the fifth circle: The Wrathful. You can listen to the... Read more

Pope Francis has said that he may consider the ordination of some married men. There is lots of room for confusion here. So here are ten things to remember about this matter: Celibacy for priests is a discipline not a doctrine – The Pope can’t change doctrine. He can change discipline. A discipline is something like which liturgy you use, rules for fasting and abstinence and celibacy for priests. It is obviously something that can be changed because the Eastern... Read more

People have asked my opinion about Pope Francis’ suggestion that maybe ordaining older married men would help. Really. I’ve written about the topic of married priests so much already. Go here and here and here and here and here and here and there’s more. Just search my blog for “married priests.” If you want to know what I think. Click away! Read more

Someone wondered the other day why hell had to last for all eternity. Wasn’t that extra cruel of God? Why couldn’t the damned simply be eliminated, crushed, annihilated? Another person commented that he didn’t think heaven was such an attractive idea because he thought he would probably get bored. Hmmm. One first has to deal with the question of why the damned could not simply be annihilated. I guess the easy answer is that God is not in favor of... Read more

My Lent book, Slubgrip Instructs is laid out with one reading per day from Shrove Tuesday through Easter Monday. In it the demon Slubgrip is teaching Popular Culture 101 (known in the slang of Bowelbages University as Pop Cult 101) For a taster, here is today’s reading, in which Slubrip lectures his unruly class on Individualism. Chamber 101 Door closes. Bell clanging. Crowd voices and movement. Slubgrip: Grimwort, prod those latecomers, will you?(A yelp.) That’s better. Move along slugs, move along. I... Read more

C.S.Lewis’ friend Dorothy Sayers was one of the great translators of Dante’s Divine Comedy. Her version includes excellent notes and a memorable map of hell. Sayers’ map of the nine circles of hell makes visual one of the most important teaching points of Dante’s great vision. Dante categorizes the sins with an inexorable logic. The sins of lust, gluttony and greed are at the top level of hell because they are the sins in which we love a good thing  the wrong way... Read more

The other day I had a conversation with an intelligent, well educated young woman who was questioning the Catholic Church’s moral teaching. She said about the church’s teaching on same sex attraction, “But I don’t know if I really accept that.” Now, I don’t really object to a person who rejects the teaching of the Church if they do so honestly and with integrity. If someone says, “I think the church’s teaching on artificial contraception is stupid. I’m not going... Read more