Controversy swirls about the Jesuit artist Marko Rupnik who has been accused of the most vile kind of sex-magic abuse. I wrote about sex magic abuse here in case you’re wondering what it is. Rupnik’s mosaics adorn many prominent modern Catholic Churches around the world from the pope’s own chapel to cathedrals and churches at important shrines. Some folks are calling for the removal of Rupnik’s art because his artistic style is so distinctive and as long as it remains it is a visual insult and reminder to Rupnik’s victims not only of his crimes, but that the church at the highest levels has do ..read more

When I served as a high school chaplain the enforcement of the dress code brought back memories of my own adolescent attitude to rules, restrictions and regulations. If those in authority tried to assert their authority by imposing rules and regulations the adolescent mind immediately finds ways to get around it–to subvert the authorities and to do so, very often, with a bright sense of humor, an intelligent insouciance and a cheerful, if stubborn sense of independence. So, for example, if boys had to wear a tie for the school Mass day they would wear the tie with a ridiculously broad or tiny ..read more

The longer I am a Catholic (or maybe it is just advancing age) the more suspicious I am of superstition in religion. Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think Catholics are any more superstitious than any other group of religious people –in fact I think they are probably less superstitious. Nevertheless superstition in religion runs deep amongst Catholics–as it does in other religious groups. I have little experience of superstition in other religions, but I expect proportionately you will find a hefty chunk of superstition amongst, certainly the more primitive and ancient religions like Hin ..read more

On social media this week some of our Protestant brothers have been using this story of St Dismas–the repentant thief who was crucified with Jesus–to take some pokes at the Catholic Church teaching. “You Catholic say baptism and Eucharist and good works are necessary for salvation, but what about the Good Thief huh? All he had was his faith in Jesus and Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” The Good thief wasn’t baptized. He never received communion. He wasn’t able to do any good works, so he is an example of sola fide–salvation by faith alone! See! Gotcha!” Take a deep bre ..read more

  It seemed that I saw a most wondrous tree born aloft, wound round by light, brightest of beams. All was that beacon sprinkled with gold. Gems stood fair at earth’s corners; there likewise five shone on the shoulder-span. All there beheld the Angel of God fair through predestiny. Indeed, that was no wicked one’s gallows, but holy souls beheld it there, men over earth, and all this great creation. Wondrous that victory-beam–and I stained with sins, with wounds of disgrace. I saw glory’s tree honored with trappings, shining with joys, decked with gold; gems had wrapped that forest tree wor ..read more

 Heresies are like weeds. They keep coming back. The thing is, they come back in different guises. In the fourth century Arianism was part of the great debate over the divinity of Christ and therefore the definition of the Holy Trinity. Arianism developed into not just a theological problem, but a major schism. The Arians had their own churches, their own bishops and their own temporal powers,  like Theodoric, supporting them. At the core of Arianism was a denial of Nicene christology. Put simply, they believed that Jesus was the “Son of God” but he was not the second person of the ..read more

In her later years my Mother moved from the independent Bible Church in which we grew up to join a Presbyterian Church. At the Presbyterian Church they recited the Apostles’ Creed each week, so on one of my visits home I asked Mom what she meant when she said she believed in One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church. Especially what did she understand “Catholic” to mean. She answered correctly, that “Catholic” means “universal” and she understood this to mean “all those who have truly given their heart to the Lord Jesus in faith–and are known to him alone.” She was articulating something that w ..read more

One of the most common questions kids ask when I visit their religion classes is “Were there dinosaurs in the Garden of Eden?” Other questions about the first chapters of Genesis are “If Adam and Eve were the first people what about evolution?” or the classic, “If Adam and Eve were the first people where did the wives of their sons come from?” Then there is the dumb internet question, “So you believe in talking snakes do you?” Let’s take the last question first. The garden of Eden story speaks of a conversation between the serpent and Eve. Was it a “talking snake”–well it might have been a sna ..read more

It is clear that Christianity in Africa is the Christianity of the twenty first century. The African Church is young, vibrant, growing and demographically dominant. Here are some statistics: With 171.9 million faithful, sub-Saharan Africa represents 16 percent of Catholics worldwide, a third the number in Europe and more than double that in the United States. The Democratic Republic of the Congo, at 31.2 million Catholics in 2010, has almost as many as Poland and France each, at 35.3 million and 37.9 million, respectively. And African Catholics are on the rise. From 1910 to 2010, they went fr ..read more

Over on X someone posted a quote from the media “scientist” Bill Nye that observes the seeming insignificance of human beings in relation to the vastness of space: “”We are just a speck, on a speck, orbiting a speck, in the corner of a speck, in the middle of nowhere.” OK. This is elsewhere called the Fermi paradox. It might be stated thus: ““There are billions of stars out there like the sun. Therefore, statistically there must be billions of planets like earth where intelligent life has developed. Given the vast amount of time and the vast number of possible “other earths” there must be othe ..read more