Here’s a grand post with pictures of the top eleven Catholic beards. As it happens, I’m letting my beard grow Can I be number 12? Read more
Here’s a grand post with pictures of the top eleven Catholic beards. As it happens, I’m letting my beard grow Can I be number 12? Read more
You know the old story: An old guy grumbles to the priest, “I don’t come to your church Father because of all the hypocrites.” Father says cheerfully, “Why not come along anyway? We can always make room for one more.” Over here feisty fellow blogger Rebecca Hamilton comes out guns a-blazin’ against hypocritical clergy and the atheists who think their just the most darlin’ thing… A good number of the others are in fact the venal liars and they appear... Read more
George Weigel shoots straight here about the crisis in German Catholicism. There is a fundamental crisis of faith at the heart of the German church, but… When one tries to discuss this catastrophe with senior German churchmen, one rarely finds, these days, a sobered openness, born of the recognition that something has gone terribly wrong and that another approach to evangelization and catechesis must be found—an “All-In Catholicism” rooted in the joy of the Gospel preached and lived in its... Read more
There are probably no greater academic debating topics than the mysterious life of the Bard of Avon–William Shakespeare. Did he really write those plays? If he didn’t, who did? Was he involved in the Elizabethan spy network? Was he a secret Catholic? Are there pro-Catholic “codes” is his plays? I’m off to England in a few weeks’ time with my friend Joseph Pearce to help conduct a pilgrimage that focusses on English Catholic literary figures and Catholic martyrs. “Shakespeare the... Read more
It occurred to me the other day that one of the things that is so unattractive about atheism is that it is well, just so dead boring. It really is just such a yawn. I’m sure there are some fascinatingly fun atheists out there, but I have yet to meet one. They’re all so serious all the time. So unimaginative. So pedantic and literal and dull. I mean, what can be more tiresome than someone who’s always rabbiting on about “Facts”... Read more
From the Archives There are many problems in the Catholic Church that might be thought to be the ‘smoke of Satan’ entering the church, but for my money one thing, above all others, has been the successful work of Satan, which has undermined the church, emasculated her ministry, sabotaged the aims of the Holy Spirit and captured a multitude of souls. It is the modernist re-interpretation of the Catholic faith. The reductionist results of modern Biblical scholarship and the infiltration... Read more
My latest article for National Catholic Register draws uncomfortable parallels between the comfy church-state relationship in England and that of the Catholic Church in Germany. I’ll admit straight up that I am not an expert on the Catholic Church in Germany. I know Cardinal Walter Kasper and a good number of the German bishops are in favor of a more permissive approach to marriage discipline. I realize they have voted to change labor laws to approve of married same-sex couples. I also... Read more
My essay for Imaginative Conservative this week called “Apocalypse Now and Then” focuses on the human weakness for Doomsday Scenarios I grew up in a fundamentalist church.” I explained, “where we heard terrible prophecies about the Great Tribulation and the end times. An impish evangelist named Jack Van Impe would visit our church and scare us with stories about Armageddon and the big computer in Brussels called ‘The Beast,’ which tracked everyone, and how the European Community would merge with... Read more
For Ascensiontide, today’s post is an excerpt from my book The Quest for the Creed. We say “What goes up must come down,” but if that which is goes up must come down, then according to the divine cosmic principles (which stand all expectations on their head) then what comes down must go up. That is to say that what is lowly will be exalted and what is humble will be lifted high. Just as the greatest (according to the divine... Read more
I was a vicar on the Isle of Wight in England when I was asked to do a series of inspirational radio spots for local radio. So I decided to play clips from famous pop songs about love and then apply them to God’s love for us. One of the clips was B.B.King’s track Guess Who. I went on to say, “Guess Who really loves you baby? Guess who will wait eternally.” and so forth. The week the spots were aired one... Read more