Here’s a post I put up on Valentine’s Day about the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Read more

Imagine this: a poor peasant in El Salvador is born in the 1960s. Let’s call her Anita. She was baptized. She was lucky. She went to school until third grade, and then was pulled out to work in the fields to help support her family. She lived in the same village her whole life. Her family were simple,hard working and poor. They prayed the rosary together most nights and went to Mass every Sunday. The priest prepared her for first... Read more

My Evangelical friend David comments that a missionary friend of his went to Brazil and was dismayed to find Catholics there bound by superstition, Pelagianism (the belief in salvation by works) and the repetition of vain rituals to please a demanding God. What are we to say to such charges? First of all, our sincere Evangelical friend must be biased. The very foundation of his particular denomination is a certain and sure anti-Catholicism. He would not be a Protestant if... Read more

Left to Right: Maureen– mission team ‘Mom’. John – very bright. Just graduated a year early, and off to Gordon College to study oceanography. A true eccentric, he wore long pants and long sleeves all week, and went to the prom with both he and his date dressed in outfits made from duct tape Norah – she and her friend Ali really are that tiny. She’s a steel magnolia. Tough, pretty, funny and smart. Ali – the other one of... Read more

Last Saturday when we arrived at Greenville Spartanburg airport we had to jostle for a place to check in because there was a group of 70 Baptist young people wearing jazzy T-shirts with Bible verses on them. They were off to Nicaragua on a mission trip. When we got to Atlanta there must have been another twelve such groups. They were clearly well organized, well funded and well, pretty annoying. Now I’m one who has a lot of time for... Read more

  Some years ago I was part of a youth weekend at Lancing College in England. Their school chapel is a great neo Gothic church perched on the side of a hill. We wanted the young people to understand the poverty in the developing world, so we set them a project: they had to go into the nearby town and beg or borrow or find building materials to make themselves a shelter. The kids took it in good spirit and... Read more

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Fr Ray posts about a drunk tramp in England who doesn’t ask for money, but a blessing in Latin. It reminds me of one of Alice Thomas Ellis’ rants. She was in Westminster Cathedral and a prissy young priest told the congregation not to give money to the tramps who gather outside the door after Mass begging. His argument was that “the cathedral runs a shelter for the homeless. Encourage them to go there. If you give them money they... Read more