With Padre Pio’s relics visiting Rome for the Year of Mercy we’re reminded of his amazing biography and how infused his whole life was with the miraculous. This website chronicles some of the astounding miracles attributed to him. The one thing which is most devastating for the Catholic faith is modernism. Modernism is like a watery soup full of various unappetizing and inedible  bits floating round in it, but the bottom line is that modernism is religion without the supernatural. It is... Read more

Over at The Suburban Hermit is my first post on Lent This is not because physical things are bad and we must punish ourselves, but because we are disciplining our appetites. If we cannot control our stomach, our need for sexual pleasure, our need for alcohol, our need for sleep which are visible things,  then why do we suppose that we can control our emotions, our will and our soul which are invisible? We are body-mind-spirit hybrids and therefore what we do... Read more

Who woulda thunk it? The  former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright believes in hell. I wasn’t aware of Ms Albright’s interesting background. She was born to a Jewish Czech family who converted to Catholicism. Brought up as a Catholic, the very accomplished lady (she speaks four or five languages) became an Episcopalian when she got married. She has said repeatedly that “there is a special place in hell” for women who don’t help other women. Her comment has made headlines... Read more

I can hardly believe that I have been blogging at Standing on My Head for nearly ten years. I got started when we moved to the USA when blogging was a fairly new phenomenon, and I started blogging in order to publish stuff that I wanted to write that wouldn’t get published anywhere else. I’ve seen the blog grow in readership and learned some tricks of the blogging art as the new medium developed. Things within blogging have shifted during... Read more

Since I seem to be equally negative about all the candidates, some people have said, “OK, Father. Who would you vote for?” The presidential candidate I would vote for would have these policies: 1. A  universal health insurance plan collected at the state level and administered at the county level. 2. A military policy based strictly on self defense. We keep a strong military presence to defend against anyone who tries to attack our country. We don’t invade other countries. At all. Ever. 3. An... Read more

My article for Aleteia this week is an interview with Br Augustine Wilmeth–a monk of Norcia. I first met Brother Augustine Wilmeth when he was one of the students where I served as chaplain. As a convert, he was intensely interested not only in his new Catholic faith but in the more traditional expressions of life and worship. I followed his progress through the years and had the chance last summer to visit him a few months before he took... Read more

Go here to listen to my homily from Our Lady of the Rosary Church on Sunday on why Catholic Education is Crucial… Read more

As always when I comment on politics be clear that I am making observations. I am not endorsing any candidate and I am not telling anyone who they should vote for. Sanders says he is a Socialist, and Catholic social teaching condemns socialism right? Pope Leo XIII most famously condemned socialism in Rerum Novarum, and Pope Pius IX wrote “You are aware indeed, that the goal of this most iniquitous plot is to drive people to overthrow the entire order of human affairs and... Read more

It was intriguing watching the results of the Iowa caucuses come in last evening, and in case any body is biting their nails about a priest writing about politics, take a deep breath. I’m not telling anyone how to vote. I’m not endorsing anyone. I’m writing as an American citizen and making some personal observations. You can disagree with me if you want. I am not speaking infallibly…. I’ll start by finding something good in what I saw. Marco Rubio... Read more

My article for Imaginative Conservative this week touches on the whip of the Balrog and how it there is a “sting in the tail” of a modernism that seems to be dying. If Fr. Tomlinson is right that secular modernism in the church has had its day, we must still beware the Balrog’s whip. There is a sting in the tail of the world’s powers, and like an angry wasp at the end of summer, the Balrog of secular modernism can... Read more