Quite often when the decadence of our society and the breakdown of marriage is discussed good Catholic folks will ask, “Father, why don’t we hear more preaching against this from the pulpit?” Hmmm. From the reports I hear the preaching in Catholic churches is often pretty awful. Either it is unprepared, unlearned, inarticulate, unorthodox or all four rolled up together. However, because I am myself in the pulpit every week I rarely have the chance to hear others preach. The... Read more

Catholic praise God that the Blessed Virgin Mary is higher than any other created being. Higher than the angels even. That’s why one of her titles is Queen of Angels But why is she exalted above all others? Because she was unique. No other created being was so intimate with God that she bore his Son into the world. Remember we say she is the highest of all created beings. She’s not higher than Jesus because he is the only begotten Son... Read more

…Good Lord Deliver Us I hope you will excuse me from venting, but has anybody else noticed the rise of what I call “the pious puppy dog”? The pious puppy dog is the kind of Christian who seems to be nothing but fluffy sweetness and light and happiness and goodness all the time. 24-7. He always has a kind of sweetly sad expression on his face. Always sympathizing with everyone who is a victim and always “deeply concerned” about those... Read more

Last week a book arrived on my desk which is truly disturbing. It’s called The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities.  Produced by The Satanic Temple it is an eight page booklet featuring typical kid’s coloring book with activities like a maze, word search, puzzles and codes. What interests me most about The Satanic Children’s Big Book of Activities is the approach the authors use. On page one there is a “find the difference” puzzle and the child is to help a little girl... Read more

There’s always a tendency in religion to want to get back to the original–to return to the primitive form of religion–to get back to the basics. Big mistake. While Catholics groups sometimes fall into this trap it is one of the underlying foundations of the Protestant movement to go in for Primitivism and Restorationism. Primitivism is the assumption that the early church was purer and closer to the essential gospel than that which accumulated over the centuries. Restorationism is the belief that Christians... Read more

The teacher in my screenwriting class said, “To create a believable villain you have to understand why he thinks he’s good.” In other words, nobody gets up in the morning deciding to be just as nasty, mean and murderous as possible. No. even Darth Vader thinks he’s a good guy, and to give George Lucas the credit for what were three pretty terrible prequel movies, at least we learned why Darth Vader is the baddie. He was just another young... Read more

In 1995 I resigned as a Vicar in the Church of England, and I and my family were received into full communion with the Catholic Church. I left the Church of England along with nearly 800 other priests. We joined the Catholic Church because the Church of England had voted to accept women as priests. Naturally our reasons for leaving were widely misunderstood. Some said we were misogynists–women haters. Others said we were hopelessly chauvinistic and patriarchal–determined to keep women in... Read more