Go here to listen to my homily for Trinity Sunday entitled The Trinity in a Cup of Tea Read more

What on earth is “Primitivism”? It’s a reformist idea in religion that buys into the idea that the early church is the pure church and that we have to get rid of all the clutter and corruption that has accumulated in the church over the centuries. I’ve written a long article about the problem within Protestantism here, but the same problem exists within Catholicism. Wherever and whenever it occurs, the premise of primitivism is that the contemporary church is corrupt, heretical,... Read more

After watching the nightmare of the American presidential election unfold I have woken up to a fresh reality. I would like to share it with you because I encourage you to do what I have resolved to do. First the bad news. This country and our world is in a bad way. The intentional lies, corruption, immorality, vanity and colossal foolishness is overwhelming. The unintentional indifference, ignorance, arrogance of the population make the situation even worse. When I read the... Read more

What has happened to your blog Father? Have you stopped standing on your head? Has the Suburban Hermit died or just taken a further vow of silence? Well, the fact of the matter is, blogs are hungry beasts. They need to be fed every day–in fact they want at least three meals a day to really thrive. And I have what might be called “Blog Burnout”. I have ideas for blog posts, but after ten years of blogging and writing... Read more

A pioneer has crossed the river. Fr James Parker has died. Fr Parker was a priest of the Diocese of Charleston, but his priesthood was historic. He was one of the married Episcopal priests who petitioned Pope Paul VI in 1978, requesting a dispensation from the vow of celibacy so that they might be ordained as Catholic priests. Paul VI died before he could answer the letter, as did John Paul I. It was John Paul II who received the... Read more

  This article was first published in CRUX Pope Francis has called for women to be granted more prominent roles in the church and for the Catholic church to continue to develop a positive “theology of women.” CNS reports here that at the Synod of the Family Canadian Archbishop Paul-Andre Durocher suggested that the church should reflect further on the possibility of ordaining women to the diaconate. In a 2012 article arguing for the ordination of women to the diaconate,... Read more

My article for CRUX this week highlights the new wave of New Testament scholarship in which the tired old theories of the liberal academics are at last being overturned with new discoveries, insights, facts, common sense and faith. The radical, revisionist scholarship reached it’s high point with the so called “Jesus Seminar” in the 1980s and 1990s. Led by Robert Funk, John Dominic Crossan and Marcus Borg, the Jesus Seminar scholars tried once again to determine which parts of the... Read more

I will be blogging more at National Catholic Register, and here is my latest blog post. As I said Mass there was also the strange awareness of transcending time. Here I was in a simple warehouse-type building in South Carolina at the beginning of the twenty-first century wearing the robes of a Roman patrician, celebrating a Mass rooted in the liturgies not only of the ancient Church, but further back—rooted in the Scriptures and liturgies of the Jewish people. Here the... Read more

Much talk today about the fact that come November we will be faced with the choice of a venal, arrogant, immoral, sleazy Republican or a venal, arrogant, immoral, sleazy Democrat for President. There seems to be a fair bit of chest beating and questioning going on…”Where is the candidate who best expresses Catholic values?” or “We need a candidate who will stand up for marriage, sanctity of life and freedom of religion.” The problem with this kind of talk is... Read more

If you’re like me you are aghast at the choices now before us. It is almost certain that the American people will choose between a corrupt, scheming, immoral, venal, arrogant, greedy and ignorant Republican or a corrupt, scheming, immoral, venal, arrogant and ignorant Democrat. Both of whom are old friends of each other and who luxuriate in their status as members of the East Coast, NYC billionaires club. So what’s to do? Take the Amish option. The Amish don’t vote in... Read more