My brother in law Jim said recently, “I find it hard to believe that the Catholics are the only ones with the magic cookie.” Overlooking the frivolity of the language, he expresses a common misunderstanding amongst non-Catholics. I guess what he means by his statement is that he thinks that the Lord is also really present within non-Catholic Eucharists. On the same day I had an email question from a Catholic who is engaged to an Episcopalian woman who is... Read more

How well I remember the fundamentalist altar call. The preachers were clear: human beings were sinners separated from the love of God. Jesus died to forgive our sins. All we had to do was repent and believe the gospel. Then, “Every head bowed, every eye closed, nobody looking around.” The old hymn, “Just as I am without one plea…” was begun, and we were asked to put up our hands if we had prayed to accept Jesus into our hearts.... Read more

How does one put hyperlinks into blogger comments? Read more

Wal-Mart is selling religious statues. They are in the toy section, and are designed to help kids learn their Bible stories by playing with action figures. That’s Daniel in the lion’s den. Check out the pictures galleries here to see them all… So nice to see the Protestants starting to accept the need for religious statues…. Next thing you know they’ll be putting little statues of Jesus on their dashboard, lighting candles before the sacred heart of Jesus and carrying... Read more

Here’s a news story to let you know what modern Britain is like. Read it and weep. Read more

You may have heard the names and adventures of Charles Taze Russell, Judge Rutherford , Mary Baker Eddy, Joseph Smith etc. etc. You can add famous dispensationalist Bible ‘scholar’ C.I. Scofield to the list of religious renegades and ne-er do wells. In a long line of American religious entrepreneurs, Scofield had a reputation as a fraud and shyster. You can read it here. The amazing thing is how some of these shysters eventually get a following. They were either totally... Read more

Sheepcat has tagged me for five thing I love about Jesus. This is totally off the top of my head: 1. He loved children.2. He rebuked religious hypocrites.3. He spent lots of time praying alone.4. He cleansed the temple.5. He didn’t complain and didn’t explain. I tag Archistrategos; Catholic Mom of Ten; Fr Benedict at The Owl of the Remove; Peter at Cum Grano Salis; and The Strong Woman Read more

Just got news last week that my new book The Healing Rosary has been given the greenlight at Our Sunday Visitor for publication next Spring. Publication is one step. After that we’ve got to get people to 1. Buy the book 2. Read it… Every step in book production is harder than the last. Read more

Here are two timelines. The first one is a dispensationalist timeline. The outline of world history here is embraced by a huge number of American conservative Evangelicals. They’re the ones who buy into the whole hugely successful Left Behind series of books and films produced by Bob Jones graduate Tim LaHaye (and others) The bottom chart is a timeline produced by Jehovah’s Witnesses. I haven’t looked at them in much detail, but they could pretty much be interchanged. If such... Read more

Over at Shrine of the Holy Whapping Drew was asking if anyone knew the origin of the bishop’s mitre. It reminded me that purveyors of the more wacky anti-Catholic propaganda believe the bishop’s mitre is derived from the ancient pagan religion of Dagon the fish god. (picture to the left) See how the priest’s headgear looks remarkably like a mitre? The tabs that hang down the back of the bishop’s mitre (they’re called lappets) are obviously the vestigial remains of... Read more