One of the best ways to tell if a parish is up to speed on the reform of the reform is to check out what their altar servers wear. If a bunch of girls show up in with high heels sticking out from below those white garments that look like oversized pillow cases you know the parish is still kicking around in the 70s (that’s the decade–not the average age of the parishioners) However, if the boy servers look seriously... Read more

The Daily Telegraph reports that the Oxford scientist who dated the Turin Shroud as medieval now has significant doubts, and is open to a new carbon-14 dating test. A BBC documentary to be shown on Easter Saturday will bring forward new archaeological and historical evidence supporting the authenticity of the shroud. I personally am a sucker for all things supernatural. I’ve always believed the shroud is a shapshot of the resurrection. The darkness of the tomb functioned like the inside... Read more

Here’s the third installment of Fr Newman’s catechesis on ad orientem celebration of the Mass. Read more

This article from The Daily Telegraph reports that the revival of the Orthodox Church in Putin’s Russia has a shadow side. It raises all sorts of basic questions about the church and the state being in bed together. Can a state church ever be free of corruption? Can a state church ever be free of moral compromise, doctrinal compromise and spiritual compromise? I think there’s a name for this. Isn’t the heresy of the church becoming the king’s puppet called... Read more

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We’re told that Moses ‘sat down’ to deliver the judgments interpreting the law (Exodus 18:13) and Jesus refers to this tradition when he says the Scribes and Pharisees occupy the ‘Seat of Moses’ (Mt.23.2) So from these two Scriptural details we can infer several things: the Jews had not only the written Scriptures, but an agreed, recognized, living, successive interpretive authority alongside their Scriptures. That authority was not individualistic, but communal. That authority had a particular function and a there... Read more

Here’s my latest article for the Crisis Magazine’s website Inside Catholic. It’s called What in the Liturgy is Going On? Read more

If you want an easy to read introduction to The Inferno check out Paul Thigpen’s excellent book (with an awful title) My Visit to Hell. It is afantastic version of The Inferno written as a modern novel. The hero enters hell through a storm sewer in the slums of modern day Atlanta. Dante’s infernal architecture is kept as a form for the story, and all the important characters are present in an up to date form. Thigpen’s book is imaginative... Read more

There is a cool interactive, online tour of Dante’s hell at http://web.eku.edu/flash/inferno/ and the University of Texas has an excellent website which allows you to learn your way around hell at http://danteworlds.laits.utexas.edu/utopia/index2.html A less professional, but fun website that helps you interact with Dante’s whole work is found at http://www.angelfire.com/ak/Nyquil/Dante.html Read more

Enough of Waugh already. I’m starting to re-read Dante’s Divine Comedy for Lent. I usually start on Ash Wednesday, but got delayed. I hope readers won’t mind some more literary posts. Read more