De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Being a Disciple of Jesus Christ takes great courage in this day and age. For some, it means sacrificing your very life: In the UK today, we are not (yet) asked to pay such a price to follow Him. But we need courage none-the-less, because though our enemy does not wield a knife and desire to kill us for believing in Christ, we instead face apathy and a society that says there is no real reason or meaning to life, and human beings are nothing more than highly evolved animals. Any organism living in an environment has to learn to adapt to that environment if it wants to survive. If we look at the Church in the UK, we can see the result of its having coexisted with this lazy thinking on it. In fact, it is sick with it, like a particularly virulent virus, its' sickness infecting every part. Weak leadership effects the Church just as it would a business. The faith is not taught, not passed on. We do not engage on a social level in any meaningful way, substituting platitudes about...

Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes Lifesite News carries the story that Cardinal Cordes has rebuked the head of German bishops: We can’t ignore Christ’s teaching on marriage (Lifesite's report in red with my emphasis [and comments]): German Cardinal Paul Josef Cordes, who headed the Papal Council Cor Unum until 2010 and was made a cardinal by Pope Benedict XVI, has publicly opposed the words and direction of the German Bishops' Conference . In a Letter to the Editor to the German newspaper Die Tagespost on March 7, 2015, Cardinal Cordes contradicts the words of Cardinal Reinhard Marx, head of the German Bishops' Conference, as well as Bishop Franz-Joseph Bode (Osnabrück). After the Bishops of Germany had had their conference in Hildesheim, Northern Germany, Cardinal Marx said words that provoked the resistance of Cardinal Cordes. The latter cardinal has responded out of concern that Marx caused confusion among the faithful. First of all, Cardinal Cordes rebuked Cardinal...

Countercultural Father has just finished reading Making Gay OK by Robert R. Reilly and published by Ignatius. The subtitle is  How Rationalizing Homosexual Behaviour is Changing Everything. This topic is practically beyond the realms of even the possibility of discussion for most people today, so successful has the project been. You are irrational, a homophobe, and a bigot if you even question the moral equivalence of the homosexual agenda. This makes this brave work all the more important in my opinion. Rather than homophobic or bigoted, could the possibility be entertained that there is an alternative to a full endorsement of homosexuality which equally seeks the very best for homosexual people? This book uses a wealth of statistics and quotations from gay sources which present a detailed account of the damaging depravity of those in the grip of the gay lifestyle at its worst. As CC Father concludes: That is the other reason we must oppose this: it is doing tho...

SPUC have uploaded a great gallery of photos taken at their Youth Conference last weekend , see if you can spot anyone you know!

Today's Gospel deals with an issue we all experience in our lives because we are broken and scarred by sin. We all want perfect relationships, we seek love, communion and friendship by nature because these things are affirming and give life. The problems occur because sometimes we claim these goods on our terms only and refuse to consider any other perspective. Of course, it's hard to forgive someone if they aren't sorry too. The Gospel message seeks to change us; to change our hearts. Proximity to Christ, to the Sacraments, also facilitates grace which changes us ontologically and opens our lives to change and forgiveness. Afterall, if Heaven means perfect Communion, how can we be fit for Heaven if we still harbour resentment and bitterness in our own hearts? Part of the process relies on self knowledge. γνῶθι σεαυτόνis -- know thyself --is one of the Delphic maxims inscribed in the pronaos (forecourt) of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi. In a Catholic context we...

Mikey relaxing in anticipation of the brain food he was about to ingest. It is so wonderful to be a father. Every stage of parenthood is different and with a sixteen and a eighteen year old at the top end of the family age group, I find myself challenged regularly as they form their ideas and test them against the logic and reason in my arguments. I think this helps me grow as a person as well as facilitating a constant development of ideas against new and sometimes challenging perspectives and scenarios. Of course, not everything they encounter is new and innovative and often the discussion will revolve around perennial problems and issues we are all familiar with. This weekend one of my boys dragged me along to a Pro-life conference where we both tested our knowledge and understanding of some of the most important issues we face in society today. So I write this as I have just returned from Southport and the SPUC (the Society for the Protection of the Unborn Child) 2015 Youth ...

Cardinal Timothy Dolan has been someone I have really looked up to as a true Catholic leader for some time. Just search my previous posts. I have stuck up for him on numerous occasions, and defended him against attacks directly, for example after this post I was contacted by Michael Voris who wanted me to go on air with him and discuss it. Recently though...Well...If I'm being honest, since the dawn of the new papacy, I have been growing increasingly worried about my favourite American prelate and some of things he says. I have started wondering why his tone seems to have changed so much. If one were really cynical, one might say he is (wrongly) interpreting Pope Francis as someone who is going to change Church teaching, and jumping on the bandwagon. And so it seems with this latest bit of news , where, in an interview with CNN, Cardinal Dolan said Islamic State militants terrorising the Middle East are a distortion of “genuine” Islam much as the Irish Republican Army w...