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From time to time in the history of the Church, certain Christians have taken some good thing out of the deposit of Faith and fallen down in adoration before it as the only good thing there is. This is known as “heresy” and G.K. Chesterton describes its genesis: “First, [the heretic] picked out some mystical […]
Do Not Turn the Prolife Movement into a Heresy Read More »
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I used to fear Halloween. Before I became Catholic, I went to a small non-denominational church that said Halloween was an ancient pagan feast and you are opening yourself to Dark Satanic Powers if you celebrated it. Then I became Catholic and, among other things, came to find out that Halloween was as ancient and
Halloween, Abbott and Costello, and Fear of the Devil Read More »
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One of the hardest things in the world is maintaining faith when other Christians, especially Christians you admire or look up to, let you down. I have friends who have struggled with real despair. I hear from converts wondering if they made a mistake joining the Church. I hear from rape survivors traumatized by Christians making
How to Keep Your Faith in Times of Scandal Read More »
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I live in a small post-war bedroom community north of Seattle. We moved here about 25 years ago and have loved our cozy hobbit hole ever since. It’s a three-bedroom cinder block house with a back yard for growing rambunctious little boys into large lumbering men with hulking bodies carrying around witty, kind faces on big beardy heads.
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When we think of “greatness” we tend to think of realms like the political or the arts. Lincoln was a great President. The Beatles were a great rock band. Casablanca was a great film. Greatness is not necessarily co-terminous or identical with goodness. Alexander the Great was great, but not particularly good. He had a colossal
Re-Defining Greatness Read More »
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Mother Teresa of Calcutta will be, very rightly and properly, canonized a saint this weekend. She is one of the most luminous figures of our time and even a generation of people in their 20s and younger who cannot really remember her clearly intuits that, when they see her face, they are looking at the
Mother Teresa and the Theology of the Dying Body Read More »
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I’ve been a writer and scribbler since forever. In high school, I wrote a column for the school paper called “Teetering on the Brink”. Later, I was an English major and cranked out papers like there was no tomorrow. After that, I became a Catholic and the Holy Spirit, like, instantly started driving me to
What I Do When I’m Struggling With Fiction Read More »
