De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Last weekend I was invited to speak at the Catholic Man UK annual conference at Buckden Towers in Cambridge. Buckden Towers, formerly known as Buckden Palace, is a medieval fortified house and bishop's palace in Buckden, Cambridgeshire, England. It is now a conference and retreat centre operated by the Claretian missionaries. The 15th-century buildings are the remains of the palace of the bishop of Lincoln. Although it is often stated as being built in the 15th century, the first (wooden) Palace was built in the late 12th century, when records show it as being used by the bishops of Lincoln. The wooden structure was replaced by more substantial buildings and a tall brick tower was added in 1475, protected by walls and a moat, and surrounded by an outer bailey. Parts of the complex were demolished in 1632 on the orders of the Ecclesiastical Commissioners. The Victorian house now present on the site was built in 1872. The remains of the bishops' moated palace consist of the great...

Introducing a new project! We hope to produce a regular video aimed at Catholic men. In this episode I talk to Catholic businessmen James Leatherland, Alex Cooper and Sam Baker.  We aimed to cover the following topics, which we sort of did, even though we may have achieved it in a meandering way:  1. Establish what we know: that masculinity is in crisis. Even the secular world is wringing its hands about it but can’t necessarily put its finger on the cause or the solution. It often focuses on mental health issues (the symptoms) and advocates men’s groups as a way of getting in touch with emotions. Men like Andrew Tate promote an aggressive appropriation of perceived masculine values, such as wealth, power, prowess and strength as a way of re-establishing male integrity. Somewhere in the middle are a few groups and individuals recognising that a lack of present fathers and good fathering is what is tearing society apart. They’re often working frantically on the frontline with y...

This is a talk from the Catholic men's weekend in Walsingham, November 2021: "To Be A Pilgrim" - Man and the Call to Pilgrimage, given by Dr. Sebastian Morello, formerly a catechist at the Southwark Diocese Centre at Tooting BEC & a formerly supervised for his doctoral thesis by Sir Roger Scruton, widely considered to be one of the world's greatest contemporary intellectuals. This talk offers some deep insights well worth pondering. Key among them is the observation that we have lost our devotional faith & attempted to replace it with a kind of rationality which seeks to explain & rationalise a supernatural reality we need and long for as part of the truth of our existence. As someone long involved in catechesis myself I am super guilty of thinking 'if only I can explain this the right way, this person will accept it'. At the same time I have always considered that an intellectual approach is only part of the jigsaw puzzle. We have to have rational...