This week’s article for Aleteia regards the pope’s attitude to money. Is it “the devil’s dung”? Finally, Catholic social teaching is not distinct from Catholic spiritual teaching. It is no mistake that Pope Francis called money “the devil’s dung” because what we do with our money is connected with what we do with our souls. Money becomes the devil’s dung when it is worshipped instead of God. When we look to money for our source of security and trust it... Read more
My friend Katrina is the feisty blogger known as The Crescat. She’s a divorced single mom supporting her son and Mom in a grueling, low paid job. She’s also a good Catholic convert–doing everything she can to soldier on through her difficulties. Could you give her some help? Her old car is just about to give up the ghost and she’s trying to raise just $5,000 on Go Fund Me to get a new set of wheels. My first response... Read more
This morning, in an unprecedented step four Catholic national publications have issued a joint editorial. National Catholic Register, National Catholic Reporter, America Magazine and Our Sunday Visitor have all called for an end to the death penalty. You can read the editorial here. In an excellent essay called The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment Lewis enters the capital punishment debate with a deeper discussion of the principles of punishment. When considering capital punishment we must think through what punishment is for in the... Read more
My weekly newsletter on the practical practice of the Catholic faith is published today. This is for the second week of Lent and we’re following a series on the precepts of the Church. Go here to read and share. Go here to subscribe. Read more
Be warned that you may find some aspects of this blog post distressing. Now that we’ve learned to be all cheerful and wholesome about sodomy it’s time to turn to sado-masochism! Never mind that the rigors of anal sex destroy people’s bodies and lives, cause disease and damn souls, we’re supposed to overlook all those unpleasant facts. Gay sex is respectable now! Randy and Andy live in the suburbs and send their kids to school, have joined the PTA and donate cupcakes... Read more
If you have encounters with non-Catholic Christians you might hope that they will ask you questions that really matter like, “Why do you trust church tradition in addition to the Bible?” or “Do you worship the Pope?” or “What is the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary?” Unfortunately one of the most common challenges is “Why do you call your priests ‘Father’ when Jesus clearly says, ‘Call no man Father.’ in Matthew 23:9?” Here are ten answers to this common question.... Read more
My latest article for CRUX highlights the controversy that has arisen over PewSitter’s offensive headline about the burieal of homeless pilgrim Willy Herteleer On Dec. 12, Willy died in a hospital near the Vatican and a few of his friends began to look for a burial place for him. German journalist Paul Badde, author of “The Face of God” — a book about the Holy Veil of Manopello — had just become a brother in the Confraternity of the... Read more
Money. Stuff. Greed. Geesh! The problems it causes! Here’s one from parish life. Recently my car was in the shop for repairs so the insurance company put me into a rental car. It happened to be a new Chevy Malibu. My usual car was a seven year old Volvo sedan. So I park the Malibu in my usual place at church and one parishioner comments, “Ooooh! Looks like Father’s doing pretty well. He’s got himself a brand new car!” Another... Read more
As the wolves of ISIS have captured whole villages of Christians we should remember the horrors of the Armenian genocide which took place in the same part of the world with the same culprits. ZENIT reports on the work of German historian Michael Hesemann who has discovered a cache of documents concerning the Armenian genocide which took place a hundred years ago this April. The genocide was carried out during and after World War I and implemented in two phases:... Read more
My article this week for Imaginative Conservative is about the women in T.S.Eliot’s life. His disastrous marriage to Vivienne Haigh Wood and his happy marriage to Valerie Fletcher are well known. What is not so well known is that he had a long term friendship with an old college flame, Emily Hale. Between the harpy Vivienne and the hestia Valerie stood a third important woman in Eliot’s life, who remained an enigmatic Beatrice-like figure. Eliot met Emily Hale in... Read more
Fr. Dwight Longenecker
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