De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

In case you missed it, the Department for Education has issued revised guidelines about RSE teaching in schools, rejecting gender ideology, warning schools to be wary of politicisation and also mentioning cancel culture. You can read the full guidelines here . The guidance now states: "suggesting that children might be a different gender based on their personality and interests or the clothes they prefer to wear. Resources used in teaching about this topic must always be age-appropriate and evidence based. Materials which suggest that non-conformity to gender stereotypes should be seen as synonymous with having a different gender identity should not be used and you should not work with external agencies or organisations that produce such material. While teachers should not suggest to a child that their non-compliance with gender stereotypes means that either their personality or their body is wrong and in need of changing, teachers should always seek to treat individual students ...

I have been subscribed to Cameron Bertuzzi (a Protestant apologist who runs a Youtube channel called "Capturing Christianity") for a while now as part of my " focusing on kerygma " thing. I find it very refreshing to listen to Christians talk about their faith.  I find their faith, devoid of the Magisterium and in some sense at war with Tradition, much more "raw" and focused on the Person of Jesus.  I have found that they never-the-less rely far more on Catholic sources than they often even realise I think. Certainly more than they would care to admit. I'm not attacking that, I'm saying that at this point in history, so far removed from the Reformation and associated movements that split the Church so painfully, people are born into traditions which seek to follow Jesus in honest ways and to observe such honest faith is deeply moving to me. It moves me because I can't help but feel that Protestant Christians do not enjoy all the benefits I do a...

The theme of this Sunday's Gospel was obedience. As a fundamentally disobedient person, I reflect on this issue quite a lot! In my parish, the homily yesterday reflected this theme: you can listen to it here .  In it my Parish Priest says that to obey means to submit my will to a higher authority. He quotes St Thomas in saying that "the road to holiness is our willingness to obey others." I have to admit that I can't find that reference, though I have looked, and St Thomas seems to say something different to me in Question 104 Article 5 of his Summa : Accordingly we may distinguish a threefold obedience; one, sufficient for salvation, and consisting in obeying when one is bound to obey: secondly, perfect obedience, which obeys in all things lawful: thirdly, indiscreet obedience, which obeys even in matters unlawful. St. Thomas teaches discernment, and that we are to be obedient insofar as we are being obedient within the parameters of competence for any specific auth...

  If you care about the Church, you're probably struggling a bit at the moment for lots of reasons. With Jorge Bergoglio at the reins as Pope Francis, it feels like a mad old parish priest well past his sell by date is running things. He doesn't care about theology, canon law, doctrine, or the effect his decisions have. He supports and promotes the UN, which has at its' heart a dubious strategy of population control . Most of his teaching seems troublingly pantheistic , and occasionally contains more than a feint whiff of direct opposition to Catholic teaching, and I quote: Today we hear the voice of creation admonishing us to return to our rightful place in the natural created order – to remember that we are part of this interconnected web of life, not its masters. #SeasonOfCreation — Pope Francis (@Pontifex) September 3, 2020 However perhaps the most troubling dimension to Jose Bergoglio's reign as the supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Church is his consistent associati...

Yesterday Caroline Farrow, a Catholic journalist and member of the Free Speech Union, was no-platformed by the University of Exeter Debating Society. She was due to speak today in a debate on whether prostitution should be legalised, but she was notified at 11am yesterday that she’d been disinvited because of her religious beliefs on a range of LGBT issues. This is a clear case of no-platforming and a breach of the University of Exeter’s professed commitment to free speech. Following our intervention, Caroline Farrow has been re-invited and will be attending the debate as planned.

Following on from yesterday , I thought I would try something new and record a video message. Me being me I totally busked it, but hopefully I get some important points across. Naturally I forgot to say lots of things I really wanted to include. Perhaps one thing I would add would be that these comments are very much in the context of a Catholic Church which is silent about the beauty and importance of human sexuality as taught by Jesus in Scripture and consistently held and taught by the Church. But also in the context of a Church which seems to applaud clergy who constantly push the boundaries of Catholic teaching in terms of the acceptance of behaviour long condemned by Christians everywhere. Today it appears to be de rigeur for priests to promote homosexuality, to be lax (read: merciful) towards adultery or fornication. We are in the world but not of the world and we must be careful that we do not lose our salt and our light by constantly echoing the message of the world.  Th...

How incredibly tragic that increasingly we watch the apostasy of the Bishops and England and Wales.  Throughout history, the Church has proposed a way of living given to us directly by Jesus Christ. He challenges us not to be slaves to our desires, to take a higher path and seek to be better humans who respect each other and creation. This path has always constituted a challenge to the dark forces of evil that control the secular polity but we have always had brave men and women who have been granted the wisdom, intelligence and insight to stand for that truth against the mainstream of the contemporary culture. Today it seems the men appointed to teach it don't have the courage or the integrity to do so. They prefer compromise in order to curry favour with those dark forces. If the Church has something powerful and life changing to impart, it should stand up and proclaim it proudly, fully aware that, as has always been the case, this proclamation of truth may cost us everything. To...

I enjoy reading Dr Ian Paul's blog , and this one caught my eye. It is a review of a book by Savvas Costi, a graduate from the London School of Theology who currently leads the Religion and Philosophy department at a secondary school in East Sussex. It caught my eye because it pertains to one of the key issues for me growing up and thinking about faith: what's the point of following Jesus? Born in 1971, and raised as a Catholic by my Irish mother, I accepted the practices of the faith and found prayer a natural and easy thing. I formed a real relationship with Jesus and this has always been part of my life. I always really enjoyed thinking and talking about religion and faith. In youth discussion groups, with priests and even with Jehovah's Witnesses or Latter Day Saints who knocked on the door of my family home. Despite this, I found it difficult to connect the friend I had made in my prayer life with Mass and what we did "in" the Church. I don't really mea...