De Omnibus Dubitandum Est.

Father Michael Halsall’s recent homily featured in my last post . His doctoral research was on Tolkein’s net-Platonic thought and he has published an excellent book. He recently gave a talk at the Christian Heritage Centre in Stoneyhurst which you can watch in the video below. Please do consider donating to the work of the centre. JRR Tolkien’s mythical world captured the hearts and minds of millions. His world is one that speaks to us because it is anchored in a profound truth: that of a cosmos brought into being and continually guided, whilst simultaneously respecting the free choices of its creatures. Rev. Dr Halsall will explore the beauty of Tolkien’s vision as a reflection of the Catholic understanding of the cosmos, as defined in its relationship to the Creator.

The Rev. Dr. Michael Halsall is the Director of Curriculum Development at Allen Hall Seminary, Westminster and a Priest in the Ordinariate of Our Lady of Walsingham. This means he knows a bit about what it means to be a priest and what it takes to form young men for the priesthood. It also means he knows the ground: he knows what is going on currently in the Church with regard to vocations and priestly formation. He gave a most excellent homily for Good Shepherd Sunday (last Sunday) which I thought I would share with you here: The earliest known image that we have of Jesus, is of a man carrying a sheep over his shoulders, with another sheep standing/following close by. He is dressed very roughly, with a leather jerkin and sandals; no robe, no hat or ring of office. The image was found in the Catacombs which lie just outside the city of Rome, where Christians chose to be buried when it was unsafe to bury bodies in the city during the plague seasons. In our technical, digitally mesmerisi...

Another excellent video presentation from Brian. Here he addresses the most frustrating and universal issue in the Catholic Church - and probably Christianity today. Everywhere I look, I see a truth reflected in existential reality: the progressive agenda has failed. Despite this undeniable truth, it seems the purveyors of progressive ideology see only one reason for this: we are not progressive enough! They reach this conclusion despite the clear evidence that the only growth is in places where we hold fast to the truth and the Traditions of our faith. Brian starts this video by stating a self-evident truth: one thing we should be able to easily recognize is that something needs to change in the Church – and fast. Every survey out there reminds us that there is a crisis of faith as numbers are dramatically declining, successive generations are walking away, vocations are plummeting, and scandals seem to preoccupy all our attention. He goes on to give evidence that the only except...

Today I want to introduce you to the Youtube project One of Nine and encourage you to watch the videos and support the channel  because both Maria & Peter are extremely talented, faithful and excellent advocates for Catholic family life. It is a positive project and it fosters a feeling that faithful Catholic families are not alone. I think this is especially important if you are a priest or religious . Why? Well, because it is frankly, heroic. As well as providing a valuable insight into the reality of Catholic family life, it provides an honest portrayal of just how challenging it is to live the Church's vision for family. Yes there is tremendous joy: I would not advocate an alternative or criticise the vision. It is the one I have chosen with all my heart. But it always comes with challenges, worries and is so often accompanied by the bitter sweetness of loss and longing.  The Catholic community here in the UK is incredibly small. Shockingly small really. I'm not talki...

I watched this video on Youtube a couple of days ago. It presents an intelligent and well constructed argument which starts out purporting to explain what a bishop is in the Catholic Church, but quickly turns into a rather convoluted apologia for Pope Francis confusing style of governance. I can't escape the impression that ultimately the whole video is a bit of a sales pitch to explain why Pope Francis is doing such a bad job as Pope. Given the way it ends, it presents an extremely circuitous narrative which takes as its starting point, the proper function of bishops but ultimately aims to explain and even justify/ edify why Pope Francis is failing to be clear and correct error. Its final assertion is that his lack of clear teaching is because he is leaving it to bishops to discern the way forward on any number of issues and, moreover, this is the proper method of governance for the Roman Pontiff. Despite the problems evident from any initial viewing, it is well put together and t...

  It is a sign of the times that we simply can no longer trust Catholic bishops to be Catholic any more. This is obviously a problem when we, collectively, give them literally millions of pounds/dollars/euros every year and we trust them to spend it on corporal works of mercy. We should be able to trust them but we can't, as has been demonstrated time and time again. Thank God for intelligent, diligent and committed Catholics like Michael Hichborn of the Lepanto Institute . They do the work so we don't have to and that is work that really needs to be done judging by the content of his latest expose on how the US bishops spend the money US Catholics provide them with.  Every time Michael exposes something like this, the US Bishops go into damage limitation mode, assuring us that they can be trusted, but they appear to be like the little Dutch boy with his finger in the dyke: every time they plug one hole, a couple more spring open. For any of us following the state of the Churc...

It speaks volumes that Cupich' motto is "Peace be with you". He spent ages thinking about that didn't he? Last weekend, Cardinal Blase Cupich was spotted in Rome ( as posted here ), Everyone immediately jumped to the conclusion this was about Cupich's twitterations and fallout with Archbishop Gomez (including me).  Today, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops issued an ill-considered statement on the day of President Biden’s inauguration. — Cardinal Cupich (@CardinalBCupich) January 20, 2021 It seemed that the Pope was supporting his favourite US Bishop and his support of the Biden administration in opposition to Archbishop Gomez. As I wrote here the links between Francis and Cupich are interesting and complicated. Cupich seems to have been brought to the Pope's attention by one of his key supporters, Cardinal Maradiaga. Maradiaga himself is mired in a veritable swamp of controversy. Speaking about disgraced ex-cardinal an serial abuser Theodore McCarrick, ...