“Catholic” means “universal” but “Catholicism” does not mean “Universalism”. Universalism is the false doctrine that everybody will be saved. This is a sentimental belief held by people who are so cushioned from the realities of life that they don’t know anybody who deserves hell and they think God is just as nice and polite as everybody they know and so wouldn’t have such poor manners as to send anyone to hell. They associate the “wrath of God” with an error... Read more

It was Mother Teresa who said, I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is ‘Abortion’, because it is a war against the child… A direct killing of the innocent child, ‘Murder’ by the mother herself… And if we can accept that a mother can kill even her own child, how can we tell other people not to kill one another? How do we persuade a woman not to have an abortion? As always, we must persuade her with love…... Read more

Did you help by donating to the campaign I ran last Fall to help build our new church? Thanks to you we have now had the ground breaking ceremony and the earth movers have begun their work. Joseph Pronechen has written a great article about the new church at National Catholic Register here. Today they are getting ready to finish the drainage pond area at the deepest level of the excavation. You’ll see the gravel and concrete drainage materials in... Read more

From what we know so far a “disgruntled employee” Bryce Williams walks up and shoots dead twenty four year old Alison Parker and twenty seven year old Adam Ward. This continues a stream of mindless violence in our society that seems to be surging. Social engineers will say, “People respond like this because they’re poor. They respond like this because they’re unemployed. They respond like this because they are….whatever.  You choose your list of the causes and cures, but the... Read more

Working in the Bible Belt we Catholics often come across Protestants who are being led to the Catholic Church. However, their path seems to be littered with land mines. There seem to be so many obstacles and one of the things which a Catholic finds curious is how the enquiring Protestant usually doesn’t have a sense of proportion about his objections. It can be bewildering. So he might say, “Is it really true that you have to pin dollar bills... Read more

I wrote a hastily and ill  informed blog post about Archbishop Cupich yesterday in the midst of my travels back from Arizona. I took the post down and stopped to do what I should have done first, and that  is to read not just the headlines but the article, and not just the article, but the  original text. Mischievous journalists with agendas will manipulate the news and the words of the famous to make them say what they want them to... Read more

In many of the discussions about women’s ordination in the Catholic Church the question is linked to the idea of married priests. Catholic progressives almost invariably link the two issues. “Priests should be allowed to marry and women should be ordained as priests.” It’s understandable that people with a shallow grasp of their faith would link the two issues. After all, both of them are “groin issues” and people rarely think logically when that part of their anatomy is part... Read more

  My latest article for CRUX is posted here. It discusses the new wave of Catholic feminists and their response to the “closed door” on women’s ordination. In Evangelii Gaudium, Pope Francis recognized the “many women who share pastoral responsibilities with priests, helping guide people, families, and groups, and offering new contributions to theological reflection.” In her recent book, Mary Rice Hasson, fellow in the Catholic Studies Program of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, quotes Agnese Camilli, “Women increasingly outnumber men on... Read more

Catholic Herald in the UK asked for an article about my recent pilgrimage to England with Joseph Pearce. My 10 years as a Catholic layman in England was somewhat of an exile in the wilderness. It was therefore with mixed emotions that I accepted biographer Joseph Pearce’s invitation to be priest chaplain on a pilgrimage focusing on English martyrs and literary figures. Up to the last minute I was regretting my decision. I had too much to do. I had... Read more