Purify Your Bride

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it. Mk 8:34-35
These words are in today’s gospel. There is just such a contrast between [...]

I sent this letter to CBC news after a story they did on ESCR: 
I saw a story on Embryonic Stem Cell Research last night. I was disappointed with a few things. First of all, there was no mention of the central ethical question around ESCR. That is, how does our respect for human life translate into respect for [...]

Pope Benedict said a while ago that being agnostic was impractical. If God is real then He belongs in the very center of our lives. He can we live life with a question mark in the center? We end up making an assumption about God’s existence and ordering our affairs accordingly. Pascal’s wager is essentially an argument [...]

Growing up you often heard people say ‘church does not need to be boring’. There was a move in the 70’s to make things more interesting. To get rid of repetitive litugy. To update the music. To be creative with preaching. This effected me as a protestant and from what I hear it was evident [...]

A while ago, around the time John Paul died, I posted something on a debate between protestants on how the late pope should be seen. There were objections to the glowing tributes based on the idea that the man “falsely” claimed to be the vicar of Christ. Plus he had a devotion to Mary and [...]

My oldest is in grade 6 and we need to make some choices about where to send our kids for Junior and Senior high. Up until now there have been in a semi-public Catholic system that is essentially free here in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. They do an OK job with the lower grades. They acknowledge [...]

There is an interesting article on the process for appointing bishops in Canada.
Msgr. Crotty notes a more liberal paradigm has operated over the past 30-40 years that seemed to suggest the church’s teachings had to change to “go where the people are going.”
“That paradigm has actually failed,” he said. “You can’t change the teaching of the [...]

There is a lot of fuss about Intentional Disciples these days. They are trying to bring some things they miss from their protestant days into the catholic church and lots of Catholics seems to be uncomfortable with that. Then there is Cardinal George who talks about some negative aspects of protestantism and we get [...]

I was reading 7 story mountain and came across something which says well what I was trying to get express a few posts ago:
I think if there is one truth people need to learn, in the world, especially today, it is this: the intellect is only theoretically independent of desire and appetite. In ordinary, actual [...]

I wonder how much an ability to think abstractly helps in seeing the truth of the Catholic faith. It certainly helped me. I know some people are just not able to step out of the fray and look at the church landscape and see issues. Doing that kind of analysis helped me a lot. To [...]

One of the things I did as a protestant was get excited about a lot of new movements. There was the Full Gospel Business Men’s Fellowship, there was some ecumenical movements, some charismatic groups, I took a trip to Israel with John MacArthur, etc. I was so on fire for the Lord I was up for [...]

I wonder sometimes about the way Catholics talk about Bishops. You see being Catholic is not, first of all, about subscribing to some set of doctrines. Certainly doctrines are a part of it but first and foremost it is about being part of a real world organization known as the Catholic church. So step one [...]

The tone of the Benedict papacy is really shaping up. He came in with a negative image as a conservative stick in the mud. John Paul was the good cop and he was the bad cop. I don’t think that was very true. I think they both agreed on all the orthodox positions the church [...]

In protestant circles people often have tough choices to make about which church to attend. The advice most often given is to go where you feel most comfortable and are feeling fed. There is almost always some statement made about how this kind of choice is not a matter of salvation. That whether you end [...]

Continuing my series of posts on my conversion. I will get a little less chronological now since I contemplated a bunch of different things at the same time. Here is one key one:
15“If your brother sins against you, go and show him his fault, just between the two of you. If he listens to you, [...]