I’ve just finished a book I had been wanting to read for some time,The Rise of Christianity: How the Obscure, Marginal Jesus Movement Became the Dominant Religious Force in the Western World in a Few Centuries Stark is a sociologist and with years of research and a sociologist’s tools he asks how a tiny Jewish sect following an executed criminal could possibly have dominated the pagan Roman Empire in just three hundred years. How is it that a rag tag... Read more

My latest article at CRUX is half of a debate on whether a baker, florist or judge must participate in a same sex wedding. Donna Carol Voss at the Religion News Service writes, It’s one thing to uphold deeply held religious views when they are private. Private views are not subject to consistency, fairness or logic. But public, legally regulated behavior is. Ultra-Orthodox Jewish men who disrupt a flight because they refuse to sit next to women are just as... Read more

American newspapers stink. I’ve never come across a more biased, close minded, slanted and propagandistic reporting than in the mainstream American press. In Britain the major papers have an angle, but you know what they are. The Times is middle of the road. The Telegraph is conservatives. The Guardian is left leaning. That’s okay because you know what their bias is and they embrace that. The problem with papers like the New York Times is that they pretend to be... Read more

The story of the cleansing of the temple has always invigorated and inspired me. I think it’s because of my dislike of the gentle Jesus meek and mild with pretty robes, combed hair and a little lambkin on his shoulder. Table turning Jesus is more like the avenging angel in one of those early Clint Eastwood movies. There he stands, squinty eyed and chomping on a cheroot–eyeing up the hypocrites and figuring out his next move. Getting his plan organized... Read more

Are women excluded from the Catholic Church? Sister Knucklerapper needs to correct you on that…. Over at CRUX Elizabetta Provoked has a gentle whine about women feeling left out in the Catholic Church. While Vatican correspondent Ines san Martin reports on a conference in Rome on the role of women in the church today. In the first two years of his papacy, Pope Francis has stirred great expectations for change among Roman Catholics who believe that the Church has not... Read more

No meat today please. Does that mean you’ll be heading for Mickey D’s for a Filet O Fish sandwich? In my opinion that’s a Lenten penance for sure…. Did you know that the McDonald’s Filet O Fish sandwich was invented by a Catholic McDonald’s franchise owner because he recognized that sales dipped badly on Fridays in Lent? Lou Groen, a resident of Cincinnati Ohio noticed that his fish shop was floundering, so he threw out the net and gathered a... Read more

I remember when I first converted to the Catholic faith an old Irish priest said, “Ahh, you’ll find that the Catholic Church is just as divided as the Anglicans.” I disagreed with him for a reason I’ll come to later, but I certainly discovered that the Catholic Church was divided. In England, where I then was, the divide was papered over in the usual way the British have of pretending nothing is wrong. In the USA I found the divisions... Read more

I’m busy again this Lent doing traditional three day parish missions. I love getting out to visit other parishes and spending time with God’s people. It is so encouraging to see so many people who want to know more about their faith and learn to grow closer to God. Last evening I finished three days at St Peter’s, Beaufort in our own beautiful diocese of Charleston. The low country of South Carolina is a beautiful network of islands surrounded by... Read more