2017-04-26T11:29:54-05:00

Holy Scripture, despite all appearances, will not always be  easy to interpret. We can be lulled into thinking our “common sense” and “by the letter” interpretation of a text is what God intends us to get out of it.  However, if this is the case, there would be little to no debates about its meaning; there would be little confusion as to its purpose and how it applies to us today. St. Peter would not have needed to tell us... Read more

2017-04-26T21:23:48-05:00

Paul and John seem to disagree with regards to the authority of government. In Romans 13:1-7, Paul says: 1 Let every person be subordinate to the higher authorities, for there is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been established by God. 2 Therefore, whoever resists authority opposes what God has appointed, and those who oppose it will bring judgment upon themselves. 3 For rulers are not a cause of fear to good conduct, but to evil.... Read more

2017-04-26T21:24:21-05:00

Faith: dispassionate understanding of God. Hope: the flight of the intellect in love towards that for which it hopes. […] Knowledge: to lose awareness of oneself through going out to God in ecstasy. Humility: attentive forgetfulness of what one has accomplished. […] Purity: unwavering perception of God. Love: growing affection for those who abuse us. –St. Diadochos of Photiki, “Definitions,” in The Philokalia. Vol. 1. trans. G.E.H. Palmer, Philip Sherrard and Kallistos Ware (London: Faber and Faber, 1983), 252. Read more

2017-04-26T11:29:58-05:00

An important belief behind the creation of the Declaration of Independence was the notion that there are human rights which cannot be alienated by positive law. If civil law opposes those rights, then civil law has lost its authority. One of the sad things we see today is that many people believe these rights are given to us by the state, so that if someone is not a citizen of a given state, they no longer are granted them. This... Read more

2017-04-26T11:33:40-05:00

From a speech last night: “On a purely personal level, as Diarmuid Martin, I have never since becoming Archbishop of Dublin felt so disheartened and discouraged about the level of willingness to really begin what is going to be a painful path of renewal and of what is involved in that renewal…. Why am I discouraged? The most obvious reason is the drip-by-drip never-ending revelation about child sexual abuse and the disastrous way it was handled. There are still strong... Read more

2017-04-26T11:30:00-05:00

We live in a very trying time. Many of the leading nations of the world, and not just the United States, have found themselves in dire straights. The greed of the past is catching up with us, causing many today to experience financial ruin. If, in the recent past, we lived through a season of greed, where wealth could be accumulated almost by desire by those who were willing to do anything to get to it, we now find ourselves... Read more

2017-04-26T21:24:48-05:00

I’d like to weigh in with some thoughts on the debate concerning the “bloodthirsty” God of the Old Testament.  In particular, Kyle here has noticed the problems that arise when reading many (not just a few) parts of the Jewish Scriptures.  He also points to the most difficult one of all for me: 1 Samuel 15.  This is important for me because I teach Scripture in a High School, and my first impulse is always just to skip passages like... Read more

2017-04-26T21:25:33-05:00

“The assertion that the Catholic Church of later centuries has developed the ideas of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, that she has ‘continually sharpened the principle of exclusiveness and so continually narrowed Catholicism’ is in contradiction with the plain facts of history. For the truth is that the later Church corrected the original rigorism of the ancient African theologian and maintained that God’s grace worked even outside the Catholic body. Non-Catholic sacraments have the power to sanctify and save, not... Read more

2017-04-26T11:30:02-05:00

Tony Stark has always been a problematic superhero. Like Bruce Wayne, he is a playboy. One can also say, like Bruce Wayne, it is a mask which he uses. But unlike Bruce Wayne, it is a mask he uses to hide from himself his own weaknesses, his own pain. When his life for pleasure does not solve his inner demons, he takes on the booze, and the demons come out and make their way into his everyday life. This, for... Read more

2017-04-26T21:26:18-05:00

One of the distressing things about being on Facebook is seeing what people think.  There is a gross hostility to Mexicans in particular and Hispanics in general.  People will claim that their hostility only extends to illegal immigrants, but that is nonsense.  In my area, we have a number of Laotian (Hmong) refugees.  For those unfamiliar, this traces itself to the Vietnam War.  While the immigrants have made significant progress economically, I don’t believe members of the Hmong community would consider... Read more

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