Purify Your Bride

What I hate most about Christmas is not the materialism. Sure we need to be on guard against excess and trying to find our happiness in stuff. I think secular people are probably almost as aware of this danger. Christians should be less likely to fall into this problem but if they are it is [...]

One of the main critiques we hear about Catholic sexual morality is that it is unrealistic. We even hear that from protestants. Our teachings on priestly celibacy, masturbation, and contraception are labeled too difficult. God gave us powerful hormones and does not want us to be fighting them all the time. The first problem you [...]

The Golden Compass and The Dark Materials trilogy was written to promote atheism. Pullman has said as much. But I wonder how successful he has been. Now I haven’t read the books or seen the movie but  I understand Pullman represents religion as a monolithic thing that is trying to tell everyone what is right, [...]

An interesting poll done by Time. LifeSite found it noteworthy that most Americans were opposed to 96% of abortions that actually occur. What I thought was even more interesting is they didn’t even include the current law as an option. The most pro-choice option selected by 42% was:

a woman should be able to get an [...]

I wanted to pick up on some ideas on Catholic art I wrote about last June:
One problem we Catholics have is we have let evangelicals outdo us in art by a wide margin. The have so much power in Christian music, radio, television, movies, etc. We just plug into what they have done and never [...]

You hear a lot about Catholic guilt. People complain that the church is always talking about sin and making people feel bad for the way they live. I wonder where they went to church. If they found a catholic church where they talk about sin a lot I would be interested to know where that [...]

I was reading an article on the Papacy and Ecumenism. He quotes Pope Paul VI as saying “The Pope, as we well know, is undoubtedly the greatest obstacle on the path of ecumenism.” That may be true but in what way? Certainly the pope is a great obstacle to watering down the faith based on [...]

An interesting document from the CDF on evangelism and ecumenism. I guess I find it interesting because interacting with non-Catholics in matters of religion is something I do a lot. Most of it is just encouragement to do what I am doing. His biggest worry is doctrinal indifference which I am not really in any [...]

Religion has led to so many wars. We should just all agree that God is love and leave it at that.

This kind of statement is pretty common for people today. Even Catholics often come out with ideas like this. But what are the facts? Are most wars based on religion? Think of the last few [...]

Some interaction with Jennyn from the Biblical Thought blog. Her words are in green.
The point is that assurance of salvation is based on the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ alone. We are making our argument from Scripture. Once again, as it says in 1 John 5:13, “These things I have written to you [...]

I have read a few attempts lately to try and compromise on the doctrine of the papacy. One of them by Tim Enloe is here. I remember trying to do that as well. It seemed quite reasonable. You don’t want to ignore the significant positive impact the papacy has had on the history of the church. The [...]

Is the American Catholic church going to take the lead in the fight against modernism? I wonder about that. It seems like the center of strength in the return to orthodoxy in the west. Where is it getting it’s strength? A lot of it comes from Hispanics immigration. While European immigration has been mostly Moslem [...]

Thinking some more about Marian devotion. Why are Catholics so attracted to it and why are protestants so repelled by it? I was wondering if it wasn’t related to the notion of masculine spirituality and feminine spirituality. Mark Shea and Jimmy Akin talked about those ideas a few years ago. The idea is that mothers [...]

I was thinking about the ideas from the last post where our emotions get tied up with our spiritual discernment. That even our choice to believe in God is based on a feeling that could be an insight into how things are but also could be an emotional wish for how things should be. Pope Benedict [...]

Did the pope slam atheism? I am not sure. He pointed out atheism was hopeless. They probably don’t like to hear that but many atheists don’t really dispute it. Some anyway will admit that it is nicer to believe your life is created by a loving God for a good purpose and that it is nicer [...]