We believe in… the Communion of Saints

“Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I do my share on behalf of His body, which is the church, in filling up what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions” (Colossians 1:24)

The Meaning of Christian Mortification

Our devotion begins not in some distant mission country but where we are right now, in our families and communities, amidst persons who bear the image and likeness of God Himself (read more…)

Why we should baptize with beer instead of water

A Catholic DISSENT from the Pope’s prohibition of beer baptism: on exegetical, historical-critical, theological, pastoral, missiological, ecclesiological, epidemiological, semio-linguistic, scientific, phenomenological, anthropological, gender-egalitarian, epistemological, and faith-based grounds.

What is the communion of saints?

The holiness of any one of us benefits all, and the sin of any one harms all, for we are joined to one another, as we are all joined to Christ…

Quotable Chesterton #1, on getting rich

“To be clever enough to get all that money, one must…

Papal authority from St. Peter to St. Gregory VII

The primacy of Rome was immediately acknowledged in the early Church; it was only its practical consequences that needed fine-tuning… (formerly “The Historical Context of Papal Authority”)

Reminders for Lent: Fasting and Abstinence

We deny ourselves food that we may be filled with the Bread of Life; so that, being hungry, we may be filled with good things…

Reminders for Lent: Mortification

As soldiers drill at peacetime to be ready to fight when war comes, so we discipline ourselves to be ready to obey God’s  commands…

Reminders for Lent: Prayer

Prayer is the essence of the Christian life distilled into discrete moments, as a  friendship is crystallized into an embrace…

To L.C., on Luther and Protestantism

By way of commentary, therefore, I’ll be writing a series of posts on the theological and historical background of the Protestant Movement…

The true Church: Catholicism or Orthodoxy? (updated)

… yet there is still only one Church, hence Pope John Paul II’s fervent wish that the Church breathe again with her two lungs…

On the papal encyclical “Saved by hope” (revised)

The Holy See has just published Spe salvi, the new encyclical of Pope Benedict XVI. Dealing with the Christian doctrine of hope, it can be found on the Vatican website, or through the link on Papal Encyclicals.net. The following, of course, presupposes that one has read or will thereafter read the new document.

Why does doctrine matter? part 2 of 2

…We were living 2,000 years after the Apostles, in a land thousands of miles from the land they trod. My best friend’s other question was in point: what’s the point?

Why does doctrine matter? part 1 of 2

…Weren’t we just bandying concepts, forming intellectual structures that were fascinating, but in the end, didn’t really matter? Wasn’t Christianity a mere mass of ideas, existing somewhere in a cloud of speculation, but having no link whatsoever with the life we lead? If it’s so real–as indeed, we believed it was–why was it complicated?…

Approaches to the Problem of Evil

I’m just sharing here some thoughts I posted as comments to an article entitled “A Biblically Smart Answer to an Impertinently Stupid Question”