Purify Your Bride

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent [...]

There is a bunch of stuff in the anti-Catholic blogs about how st Jerome was really a protestant. David King has a long piece here. Of course he starts with lots of talk about how smart he is and how stupid Catholics are. He knows most people don’t have the patience to wade thorough long [...]

Mark Shea has a good piece on Catholic Exchange about hell. Nobody likes to think about hell. Just like nobody likes to think about growing old or their children misbehaving. But we avoid talking about hell more than we avoid talking about other unpleasant topics. Mostly because the reality of hell forces us to make [...]

What changes about a baby when it is born? It depends on how you think of a baby. If you think of the essence of a baby and think about how that essence is effected by the even to of it’s birth then the answer will be that not much has changed. It’s location has [...]

There is an interesting article by Nate Silver. He is a liberal political analyst. He has some good insights into numbers. This time he looks at the Stupak amendment. What he finds is fascinating. Many of those who voted for the amendment have pro-choice voting records. He also says many of them are in vulnerable [...]

David Waltz comments on a discussion at Beggars All about the Wheat and Tare parable in Mat 13. David’s point it that TurretinFan completely misrepresented what Augustine said on the issue. He is right, of course. Protestants love what Augustine says against the Pelagians. He sounds protestant to them because he is opposing works based [...]

RC Sproul writes a short bit on assurance of salvation:
Many believe that assurance of eternal salvation is neither possible nor even to be sought. To claim such assurance is considered a mask of supreme arrogance, the nadir of self-conceit.
The Christian tradition teaches the virtue of hope. Hope has two opposite vices. On the one side [...]

I bought the Epic Church History CD set from Ascension Press. I am learning a lot. One thing that I didn’t realize was how badly the Arians out-evangelized the Catholics. Especially among the German tribes they were much more aggressive and much more successful than the Catholic in converting the barbarians. The Catholics go lucky [...]

The folks at Called to Communion are busy these days. They have a long article responding to Ken Mathison’s book where he tries to draw a distinction between Sola Scriptura and Solo Scriptura. Bryan Cross argues that there is no principled difference between the two. I can see his point. But I do think there [...]

A new study says for married couples the more kids they have the happier they tend to be. For unmarried couples that does not hold. The researcher struggles to explain the findings:
“One is tempted to advance that children make people better off under the ‘right conditions’ — a time in life when people feel that [...]

I was looking over the Pope’s prayer intentions this month. One went like this:
That all people of good will, especially those who make political and economic policies, may commit themselves to care for all creation.
This reminded me of what the pope said in a speech almost a year ago now. There he embraced the argument [...]

An interesting article in Christianity Today that talks about how more protestants are converting to Roman Catholicism. They actually talk about conversion to the catholic church quite positively for a protestant magazine.
“The gaping divide between evangelicals and Catholics is ecclesiology and authority, not justification and salvation, as important as that debate remains,” George said. “There [...]

Pope Benedict talked about a 12 century dispute between St Bernard of Clairvaux and Abelard. The translation is not on the Vatican site yet but when it is it should be here. Some of the things he was saying about Abelard sounded to me like nominalism.
“An excessive use of philosophy rendered Abelard’s Trinitarian doctrine dangerously [...]

Brandon linked this talk by Peter Kreeft in the comment below. I got a chance to listen to it last night. As always, he has very interesting ideas and he communicates them well. I do think he simplifies things a lot. I don’t think he believes things are that simple. He is just trying to [...]

Steve Ray links a Peggy Noonan article.
The most sophisticated Americans, experienced in how the country works on the ground, can’t figure a way out. Have you heard, “If only we follow Obama and the Democrats, it will all get better”? Or, “If only we follow the Republicans, they’ll make it all work again”? I bet [...]