If you want to read more about Mary order my book, Mary-A Catholic Evangelical Debate.I wrote this book with a guy who was at Bob Jones University with me. David Gustafson is now an Evangelical who attends and Episcopal Church. He argues the Evangelical side and I defend the Catholic side, and we go into great detail into all the Marian doctrines and customs. Some have said it is the best apologetics book on Mary out there. (And the author... Read more

At RCIA the question arose tonight about Mary being called ‘Mediatrix’.  “Don’t you Catholics know that the I Timothy 2:5 says, ‘There is one mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus?’ ” Why do you need Mary as mediator? Now when a Protestant throws a verse to a Catholic as a proof text that the Catholic has got something wrong there is a curious lack of logic happening. Considering the Protestant’s protestations there can only be four conclusions:... Read more

One of the Protestant objections to the Catholic faith is that we make too much of the Blessed Virgin Mary. She looms large in their perception of Catholicism, and they believe that we value Mary more than her Son, and that we pay her far too much attention. There are many theological replies that can be made, but a simple, practical reply is to suggest that the Protestant has this misunderstanding because he has never been a Catholic. They do... Read more

I was living in England as a young Anglican priest when my younger brother came to live with me. Some weeks after his arrival he learned about the death in a plane crash of a young friend of his we shall call Tom.  Tom was about 5’2″ with a shock of blond hair, a round tanned face with freckles. He was brought up as a Baptist, but had never been baptized and he was in a state of rebellion against... Read more

It was my unusual privilege today to celebrate All Saints Day and All Souls Day on the same calendar day. One Saturday a month I take the Saturday duties at St Mary’s, and as it happened, I celebrated All Saints’ Day with a splendid solemn Mass at 10:00 and then heard confessions in the afternoon and celebrated the vigil of All Souls’ at 5:00. Nice. Read more

Here is my latest article from National Catholic Register: Are Witches Real? Read more

This article explains how redundant churches in Britain are to be turned into multi faith centers, gyms, pubs and dance halls.  Britain has a huge problem with too many church buildings and too few worshippers. Added to the problem is an expanding and moving population. Often churches exist where there are no people and there are people where there are no churches. The sprawling housing estates where everyone lives have no churches while the inner cities and rural villages (where... Read more

I was listening to talk radio (code for Right wing extremism) in the car the other day. This is my usual fare when not listening to the fundy preachers and country gospel music. The guy said he was ‘a happy warrior’. It stuck in my mind when reading the epistle today at Mass from Ephesians about putting on the whole armor of God and fighting against principalities and powers and ‘the spiritual forces of wickedness in high places.’ I love... Read more

Your blogger sporting a new biretta. Read more

Fr Blake has this post and video about real, solid Catholic missionary work in South America. None of this flaky liberation theology junk. While I’m at it, when I was training in England for Catholic ordination we had a sixties type Domincan come to lecture us about sacramental theology. He was getting all excited about liberation theology sacramental theology…”So you see, whenever we give a poor person a bath it is a baptism..whenever we feed the hungry it is Eucharist.”... Read more