Let’s face it. Some people enjoy being miserable. Here’s why: First of all, it could be that it is simply their personality type. When I ran a business training company before I was ordained we used a personality type program to help people improve working conditions. I soon realized that there were three personality types who gain pleasure from being miserable. The first one is what I call the Faux Martyr. They love rushing about helping people. C.S.Lewis said you... Read more

From a Letter Mozart wrote to his father shortly before his father’s death…. As death, when we come to consider it closely, is the true goal of our existence, I have found during the last few years much closer relations with this best and truest friend of mankind, so that his image is not only no longer terrifying to me, but is indeed very soothing and consoling. And I thank my god for graciously granting me the opportunity of learning that... Read more

When faced with the new horrors confronting Christians in the world today one comes back time and again to ask “Why”? First of all we consider the enemy. Within the world there is an irrational rage that surges out into violence. One cannot enter into any kind of discussion with such violent and irrational rage. When faced with it I am reminded of the sub human beasts in the film I Am Legend. There was no reasoning with them. They were demon... Read more

The Christians captured by ISIS forces earlier in the week are now being executed according to this report from ZENIT Terrorist group Islamic State (IS) has started killing hostages seized after it took Assyrian Christian villages in Syria’s Hassake governorate – with reports that around 15 are dead.  In a message sent to Catholic agencies working in the region, including Aid to the Church in Need, Archimandrite Emanuel Youkhana passed on news of the executions from a contact in Hassake city –... Read more

Television preacher Pat Robertson has warned viewers not to practice yoga because they will be unwittingly be praying to Hindu gods. What is yoga and is it incompatible with Catholicism? Fr John Hardon explains more about it in this short article Yoga is incompatible with Catholicism because the best known practice of Hindu spirituality is Yoga. Inner Hinduism professes pantheism, which denies that there is only one infinite Being who created the world out of nothing. This pantheistic Hinduism says... Read more

My weekly newsletter FaithWorks! is being published again for Lent. During Lent I’ll be writing a series of articles on the seven precepts of the church and why they’re important. The first is on our duty to  attend Mass weekly. Included in the newsletter are practical teaching points, resources and links to helpful information and inspiration. Go here to read the newsletter for the first week in Lent Go here to subscribe to the newsletter. Read more

My latest article for Aleteia notices the disturbing co-incidence that the day after 20 new cardinals were created 21 new martyrs gave their lives on a Libyan beach. There was a chilling synchronicity in the religious news this last week. On Saturday, standing with twenty new cardinals, Pope Francis made twenty-one. The next day the world was shocked by a video showing twenty-one young Coptic Christians being marched to their deaths by beheading. The now all too familiar orange jumpsuits... Read more

The AP reports here that ISIS terrorists have swept through Christian villages in Northern Syria kidnapping nearly 100 Christians. The latest assault began before dawn on Monday, when the militants swept through the villages nestled along the banks of Khabur River near the town of Tal Tamr in Hassakeh province. The area is predominantly inhabited by Assyrians, an indigenous Christian people who trace their roots back to the ancient Mesopotamians. During the raids, the militants took between 70 and 100... Read more

This week’s article at Imaginative Conservative looks at our need for happiness and what happens when we are disappointed. The problem is that the paradise is never achieved. There is always disappointment and a fly in the ointment. The search for pleasure ends in addiction instead of satisfaction, and the search for utopia ends in hypocrisy, tyranny, and terror. The panicked soul, realizing that paradise is unobtainable never blames himself, but always blames others, and this is where the other... Read more

In this excerpt from The Gargoyle Code Slubgrip’s colleague Pipteazle instructs Dogwart on how women are tempted by a different type of porn than men. It seems appropriate during the disgusting hype over Fifty Shades of Grey. Ms. Pipteazle Archsecretary Female Division Lilith Hall, Seventh Circle Dogwart, Slubgrip has ‘asked’ me to write to you about the temptation of females. Lord below! As if I haven’t got enough to do without wasting my time trying to school  pipsqueaks like you in stuff you should... Read more